Thoughts on H1N1 and French Toast

Unless you're living in a cave, you know that flu scare is in full swing this year. There's the seasonal flu, and then the dreaded H1N1, a.k.a. swine flu, and if you were pregnant this year (like I was), or have a baby under six months old at home (like we do now), then you're officially high risk and should probably get yourself and your whole fam-damily vaccinated a.s.a.p.

How do I sum up my conundrum succinctly?

-Georgia's allergic to eggs, so she can't get the regular seasonal or swine flu vaccines;
-But she's testing so low on the RAST scale that she's scheduled for a food challenge for eggs in January;

-In the meantime, we've got an infant at home that we should be going the extra mile to protect from swine flu.
-Basically, this leaves me wondering, what is the greater risk? Georgia having an allergic reaction to eggs, or June getting the swine flu?

You see what I'm saying? I mean, we're following doctors' orders and all, so we are NOT feeding Georgia eggs on our own - we are waiting for the medically supervised food challenge - and we are not getting her swine flu vaccinated until she passes the food challenge. However, I'm just saying that we sometimes wonder whether this protocol makes 100% sense, given the possible dire consequence of June getting the swine flu, and given the fact that the allergists must believe that Georgia's probably not allergic to eggs at this point, otherwise they wouldn't have recommended that she do the food challenge.

In semi-related news, they called from the allergist's office to say that we are supposed to bring our own food to the food challenge, and specifically that we are supposed to make FRENCH TOAST to bring. Something about that just cracked me up. "Hi, I'm just calling to remind you of your daughter's appointment and to make sure that you know how to cook french toast. Will that be a problem?"

Then, a few days later, we show up at my sister's house for Christmas Eve brunch, and what is she serving but french toast! Suddenly it just seemed so odd to be heading off to a doctor's appointment in January to feed Georgia french toast, when I could've just given her some right then and there on the spot.

Again, we did not do that. We are following the doctor's instructions. I do not recommend that anyone else out there perform food challenges at home with respect to allergens that they've been told to avoid. All I'm saying is.......well, you can appreciate the weirdness of this stuff, right? The oddity of going through such formalities (like a 4 hour doctor's appointment) to eat french toast, when it's right there available on your table.

Christmas Morning Reaction

Just a brief note to record the fact that Georgia had some kind of contact irritation or allergic reaction on Christmas morning. Not sure what it was from, but she broke out in a red rash with hives all over her face, mostly on one side, and had to have some Benadryl.

She had eaten Dum Dums and Tootsie Rolls from her stocking, both of which I think were safe.
Not sure if she got kisses from someone who had been eating something unsafe or what exactly happened? This one will remain a mystery.

Since I'm on the topic of holidays, I just want to add that in my opinion there are too many allergen-laden foods in our house right now. I know that some "allergy moms" are super strict with their families when it comes to holidays and food. We, however, are not a "strict prohibition" or "zero tolerance" household, which is to say that we generally allow in foods that Georgia is allergic to and just police them. That said, we try to remain nut free and sesame free as much as possible. We do not buy these things and bring them into our home. This helps to avoid pantry mix ups, problem crumbs, cross contamination, and that kind of thing. (We are not as strict with eggs - we still keep eggs in the house and some processed foods made with eggs.) With family in town, and neighbors and friends having dropped off a few food gifts, I suddenly feel like we've got about 10-12 off limits foods floating around. Not a huge big deal, but I will be more comfortable when we're back to our usual ways. I tend to view these ingredients as threats to my child's health and safety; I think that others just view them as "things she can't have." Anyway, Joe may have to take a few of these items to the office with him tomorrow.

A date with the devil(ed)

Finally! An appointment!

January 12th.

Bring on the eggs.

My bets are on Georgia.

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.

Funny Halloween Exchange

Kid: "Trick or Treat!"

Us: "Here ya go." (Drop candy in bag.)

Kid: "Do you have any Reese's?"

Us: (Lauging) "Oh, specific requests, eh? We haven't gotten any specific requests yet."

His parent: (Hollering up from the sidewalk) "Oh, sorry! His school wouldn't allow anyone to bring candy with nuts for their Halloween parade, so he's been asking everyone for Reese's." (Gives the "can you believe it?" head nod and partial eye roll.)

Us: "Oh." (Smiling.)

They were gone before we could react with any kind of witty response, or at least interject that it's just fine by us if his school doesn't allow nut-laden Halloween candy. It's all for the best, though, since um, Halloween is kind of all about the candy and having a good time, not hearing about your neighbor's child's medical history while you're out trick or treating. (duh.) : )

No Fright Night Here

Happy (belated) Halloween!

From what I can tell from perusing the Internet, Halloween tends to freak allergy parents out a bit. We've been lucky so far, and it has not been any big deal.

Halloween '07 (Georgia age 2 months): Dressed her up in a costume. Took photos. She wasn't even eating solids, and we had no knowledge of her food allergies anyway.

Halloween '08 (Georgia age 1): Dressed her up. Took photos. Like most 1 year olds, she had no idea about the trick or treating or candy. Didn't feel like she missed a thing.

Halloween '09 (Georgia age 2): Our first year with a toddler running around a Halloween party. Our first year trick or treating with her. I'm beginning to see where the parental nerves come from with this stuff. Our daughter's still at an age where it wasn't that big of a deal, though. We hit only 5 houses while trick or treating and were able to control all of the candy consumption.

Eek! An allergy mom's worst nightmare: our child, having run off at a party, scooping up something to eat off the floor! Fortunately it was just a grape in this case. Shwew!

The best part of Halloween (from an allergy perspective, I'm saying) was that she made great strides in learning to ask us which foods she can and cannot eat. We practiced at home with her. It was rather cute seeing her hold up each piece of her loot and ask, "Is this safe for me?"

I also tried to buy allergen friendly candy to hand out, in case any of the trick or treaters coming to our place happened to have food allergies. Who knows?

We went with Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids, and Smarties. (Not my personal favorites, I have to say!)

This (Halloween with a food allergic child, that is) is just another one of those things that's going to continue to evolve year by year, I can tell. Right now I could sit here and tell you that I don't understand what all of the fuss is about. But then again, I don't have an 8 year old trading candy with her friends at school and that kind of thing to deal with. I'm sure my perspective is going to change!

Oops. Minor Bib Incident.

I wasn't there at the time, but Georgia had a very mild allergic reaction (some hives on her face) to skin contact with a bit of food residue on a bib that she borrowed during a playdate. The bib was the style that slips on over your head (kind of like a tea towel with a head hole cut out of it), so it probably just grazed her cheeks. We think the culprit was either sesame (from hummus) or some peanut butter. The bib's owner suspects hummus. Of course she keeps their bibs clean to normal standards, though, so she jokingly inquired when we discussed the incident later, "Is Georgia allergic to sesame vapors or something?"

I agree -- it is kind of astounding how sensitive Georgia's skin can be. Fortunately, the hives didn't even require any Benadryl and disappeared within 15 minutes. But this incident was a good reminder of how careful we have to be to prevent Georgia's ingestion of allergens.

The silver lining here is that two more adults have now witnessed Georgia having some kind of allergic reaction, thus proving that I'm not crazy. Well, you know what I mean -- it's not that I thought I was crazy, but sometimes I wonder if other people think that Joe and I are just making of all of this allergy stuff up!

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!