Oh, hello there!

Hi there, poor, neglected little allergy blog o' mine. I'm not sure where the time has gone, except, wait, actually, yes I am. I had a baby boy in August, and as such critters are wont to do, he's been keeping me quite busy. Three kids under 5 is officially a handful in my book. With a scarcity of spare minutes for blogging, I've been devoting those minutes to capturing Waylon's babyhood and our girls' antics elsewhere rather than Georgia's allergies on this blog.

All of that said, I have made connections on this blog with other families dealing with food allergies (sidenote: my apologies to those of you to whom I owe emails; it's nothing personal but I've been terrible about correspondence lately), plus I like having some record of Georgia's progress, so I'm not yet interested in totally foregoing this blog or shutting it down.

They say when you get behind in school, sometimes it's best to just let go of what you haven't done and instead start reading for the next class. With that sentiment in mind, I'm jumping back into this blog without rehashing every detail of the past 6+ months.

But there were a few events worth mentioning...

In September, our family participated in a FAAN Walk for Food Allergy. I am not sure whether Georgia really got a kick out of being in a community of supportive people and others with food allergies, or if I was just projecting that sentiment on to her because I sort of felt that way? Anyway, it was a gorgeous fall day. We tried to explain to Georgia beforehand that the purpose of the walk was to raise money for scientists and doctors to learn more about food allergies, and she really latched on to that apparently. My favorite part of the walk was that she kept asking where the scientists and doctors were. "Is he one of the scientists, mommy?"




It was a 2 stroller kind of day for our crew.


Waylon, always the supportive little brother at 5 weeks old, wore his green ribbon in honor of his big sister. (Blue ribbons were for those with food allergies, green for friends and family.)


Good thing this wasn't a race; I think we would've come in dead last. Actually, we didn't really complete the whole walk, but I think it's the thought that counts, don't you? At this point in our life as a freshly minted family of five, I was impressed with us just for showing up.


June enjoying some fancy top 8 allergen-free jelly beans. (They had all sorts of free goodies there.)






I think I look pretty terrible here, but with good reason, right? And now you can see part of the reason our troupe was moving so slowly.


Georgia proudly showing off her free t-shirt.


Normally, people with food allergies just want to fit in with the crowd and be "normal." But when you're 4, you think it's pretty darn cool to get your very own special blue ribbon just for having allergies.


June kept running way ahead of us on this path along Lakeshore Drive. I love her wobbly toddler jogging. : )

Oh, shoot. Look at the time! Well, I had intended to write about Georgia's October allergist appointment, too, but if I wait to complete that, this will probably never get posted. So I'm just going to hit "Publish Post", run to get in the preschool pickup line now, and save the rest for a different day. Ta ta!

New Allergist

First let me say: if you are in med school, or thinking about enrolling, I highly recommend you pursue the field of allergy and immunology. Granted, I am not a doctor and know nothing about the training involved or what the job pays relative to other specialties, but I can tell you there must be a shortage of pediatric allergists based on how long it takes to get an appointment.

Georgia's allergist, who we liked very much, moved out of state, thus forcing us to figure out an alternative. Switch to a different doctor within the same practice? Or switch to a new doctor in an entirely different practice? Pros and cons were weighed. Complicating the decision-making process was my firmly held opinion (based entirely on anecdotal evidence) that there's a wide range in the quality of available allergists. Some allergists take the time to educate the patient (or the patient's parents, as the case may be), and others only run a simple blood or skin test and send you on your merry way into a total morass of misinformation, which is scary when you consider that confusion about allergies can lead to life threatening situations.

We ended up deciding to stay with the same practice since they know Georgia's history, and we have come to expect a certain level of quality service from them. Well, we decided to stay, that is, until I called looking for an appointment 8 weeks out and was told that NONE of the physicians in the group had a single available appointment for the remainder of the YEAR! Our name was added to a several-months-long waiting list, even though Georgia is considered an existing patient of this practice.

So, that pretty much ended it for me. We'll be trying out a new allergist, at a new practice, where we were able to get in with about one month's notice. We got a recommendation for this allergist from a doctor friend of ours, and I've now begun the process of building this new allergist's abilities up in my head to the level of "magical wizard who will solve all of our problems". That's realistic, right?

Seriously, though, I get kind of keyed up for these appointments. They only happen once a year. On the plus side, the limited frequency of visits is a nice reminder that Georgia's condition is a very livable one. Think of all the children with diseases that require them to be in and out of doctor's offices and hospitals all year, constantly being tested, poked and prodded. I am so grateful for our health and the fact that no one in our family is facing that situation at the moment. On the down side, the once a year nature of these allergist appointments makes it feel like you've only got one shot to get more information and ask questions in person. One opportunity to change the course of how you live your daily life for the next year.

I guess I'm exaggerating a bit; it's not like you can't contact them at other times of year, but the annual appointment is the big show in my book. So tell me now - are there questions you have thought of that I should be asking? I don't want to forget to ask anything while I've got the allergist's ear!

Waiting...

The good news: Based on Georgia's latest RAST score, she's eligible to do a food challenge for eggs, and if she passes, she'll be declared no longer allergic to eggs and may eat them to her heart's content. Yea!

The bad news: This food challenge has to be done supervised, at the allergist's office. Fine. But we can't get an appointment! All slots are booked up for November and December, and we are on a waiting list. A waiting list to try eating some eggs???? Argh!

A little frustrating. But I suppose, if you have been avoiding eggs this long, what's another couple of months? No biggie.

We are following the doctor's orders and not trying this at home. She'll just have to wait until next holiday season for pumpkin pie and Christmas cookies, I guess.

Allergist Update: RAST Results

The allergist called with Georgia's RAST test results today - woo-hoo! Information!

(Bummer that I was not home and Joe answered the phone, because I wanted to hear it all first hand. I was like, "Tell me everything they said, verbatim! Every word. Did you take notes?" I'm a dork, I know.)

Anyway, great news:

• Georgia's RAST score for egg is low enough that she is now eligible to do a supervised egg challenge in the doctor's office. If she passes the egg challenge, she'll be cleared to eat eggs!
• Her poppy seed and chick pea scores are low enough that we are allowed to try re-introducing those foods to her at home. On the subject of poppy seed allergy: interestingly, an email that I had written to the allergist at the time of Georgia's supposed poppy seed reaction revealed that she had also been eating fish at that meal. (She used to tolerate fish but started having allergic reactions to it within the last year.) So, it is now believed that what I thought was a poppy seed reaction at the time, (since in my mind it couldn't have been the fish, since she'd eaten it many times before with no problems), was actually a reaction to the salmon that she had been eating.

Her peanut, tree nut, sesame and fish scores are all still too high for her to do food challenges on those. Maybe next year.... Fingers crossed that the scores will keep coming down.

So, if we assume for the sake of argument that Georgia is able to pass the egg challenge and successfully reintroduce poppy seeds and chick peas to her diet, then that means our list will go from:

Peanuts and tree nuts, sesame, fish, shellfish, poppy seeds, chick peas, and eggs

-down to-

Peanuts and tree nuts, sesame, fish and shellfish

(Which for the sake of simplicity could be summed up as: Nuts, Sesame, Fish. Doesn't that sound like a MUCH shorter list than what we have been dealing with? I think so.)

All in all, a great report.

More Waiting...

Well, things went fine at the allergist, but the appointment was a bit anticlimactic.

I know, I'm an idiot, because what was I expecting? The whole mystery to be solved?

Anyway, I thought they'd be doing skin testing again, but it was just blood (RAST) testing, which means that we'll have to wait about a week for the results.

Happy Allergist Eve!

I feel like a kid on the night before Christmas. Tomorrow we go back to the allergist for Georgia's annual appointment.

Annual. So slooooow. I understand the protocol, but I just wish these things rolled around more often, because we are always craving additional information.

Tomorrow we begin to find out more - yea!