Allergy Update

We got the results of Brennan's blood work yesterday. When we were at his last allergy appointment, she ordered quantitative IgE levels for all his allergies. When we did his skin tests last fall, it was just a positive or negative result for each food. But the blood test tells us exactly how allergic he is to each thing, and we can do repeated tests to follow the numbers and see if they go down. Overall, the results were very good. The levels were lower than she thought, and he was even negative to almond (yay - a nut he can eat!). And his allergy to walnuts was very low. Interestingly, he was the most allergic to casein, which is a milk protein found in all kinds of things, even products that say "lactose free" like cool whip and some soy cheeses. It was even higher than peanuts, which really surprised me. Unfortunately he had a weak allergy to soy, which was negative on the skin test. I've replaced all dairy projects with soy, so I'm not sure what to do about that. I'm guessing I should keep giving it to him since he's doing SO much better skin-wise and he needs the nutrition. But I'll have to ask his doctor about that one. Another new allergy was sesame, so I guess I have to stop giving him those sesame crackers I found. The wheat allergy was relatively low, so it'll be interesting to see if it goes down.

Getting the blood drawn was quite a story. I left the other kids with Dave because no one needs to see their baby brother screaming from a medical procedure. When I got to the lab there was just one phlebotomist working (the last time he had blood work there was another lady there to help me hold him down), so she said I'd have to hold him myself and I might have to come back another time if she couldn't get it. Amazingly, he didn't make a peep when she stuck him, and she got it on the first try no problem. Apparently he has excellent veins. All he did was tense up his arm. What a trooper.