With all the goings on over the last few weeks, I haven't really had a moment to sit down and write about our recent allergy discovery with Ryder. Brace yourself, it's a doozy. So the Wednesday night before we left for SD I made one of my favorite dishes (beans, corn, and cottage cheese) for dinner. I was looking forward to seeing if Ryder would enjoy it. Boy was he... bite after bite into his mouth, until I started to notice that his face was swelling up and he had a red rash all over his chin and cheeks. Then came the coughing and vomiting. I was pretty sure he was having an allergic reaction to something he ate. I cleaned him off and called the doctor's office. They quickly determined that he was in anaphylactic shock. The nurse instructed me to give him Benadryl... she said that if his appearance and breathing did improve within 3 minutes of giving him the Benadryl then I was going to need to hang up with her and call 911. Thank God the Benadryl worked almost instantly. His swelling started to go down and his wheezing stopped. By far the most crazy scary thing I have had to deal with as a mom so far. Being told by the doctor that we were very fortunate that our situation ended well is a very eye opening statement. The next morning we went to the doctor's office so they could take some blood for an allergy test. Then came the waiting and hoping that his allergy was to corn or beans and NOT to the cottage cheese. A week later the doctor called me with the results... NOT good news. Worse than I had thought it would be. Severely allergic to dairy (cow's milk products), egg whites, and whey. The even bigger shocker... mild allergy to peanuts. All of the severely allergic items he could very well (fingers crossed) outgrow. The peanuts, not so much. That one is sticking around. The doctor said that nut allergies tend to escalate and reach there max severity by 2 years of age. So for now, there is no way to know if he will only have a mild peanut allergy, or end up with a severe peanut allergy. At 2 he will be tested in the doctor's office to determine that. He said until then to operate under the assumption that peanuts will send him into anaphylaxis and avoid them at all cost. As for the dairy, no cheese, no butter, no ice cream, no cow's milk... to name a few. I never realized how many things have cheese or milk in them. Insane... and a huge pain in my butt. It has been an overwhelming experience so far... I have been trying to do all my homework and learn as much as I can about alternatives to dairy and peanuts and all that. When we get back to Texas we have an appointment with the doctor to go over everything more thoroughly, prescribe and show us how to administer an EpiPen, and get referred to an allergist so a more detailed allergy scan can be ran on Ryder. Good times. The bright side... we found these allergies early on... he can potentially outgrow some of them. Hoping for the best possible outcome for our little man!
Seriously, who needs PB&J when you can have SSB&J. Mmmm, so yummy. Ryder actually really liked the sunflower seed butter. I haven't tried almond butter or anything like that yet. They are on my list of things to get for him to taste.
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