Allergy Tests Cause Unexpected Reaction

Well, Davis underwent allergy skin testing yesterday, and it brought back some memories. It felt good that we would soon have answers to why he had reacted to the apples, pears, and bananas the way he had. As soon as they complete the 32 "injections," the reaction begins. You start to see redness and swelling at the poke sites, and then some go away and some continue to swell over the next 15 minutes. Well, we could tell right away that his test was WAY better than his older brother's tests had been. There were two spots that were large, and the rest seemed pretty minor, so we already felt relief before the doctor came in to interpret the results.

He came in and told us that Davis is allergic to eggs and apricots. We paused... "And?..." He said, "and that's it!" At first we were excited, and then we were puzzled. So, why the red rashy face when he ate the apples, pears, and bananas? He can't say. He suggested we continue to keep a food journal and re-introduce those in about 4-6 weeks.

This allergy business (Emily, Jen, Cassie, Cara, Lisa... we can all attest to this!) is SO inexact. There is such an error rate on the tests and there are SO many false positives that you don't TRULY know whether your child will react until you expose him to the allergen. He tells us that "the testing is just a guide, really." I feel sorry for these doctors who have to sit across from parents like me and Jeff and, day after day, tell us they don't really know what's going on and that we have to rely on trial and error. That's okay, we are used to food trials. No problem.

So, the test results were awesome and what we left with was confusing but was amazingly good news. We expected to see a laundry list of foods to restrict and feared we were going down that road again... but maybe that won't be the case with our little blondie.

Last night, I got home and fed him a jar of organic sweet potatoes. He loved them. No reaction. So, we add them to the "good" list and press on.