And the results are.....

We went in today for more extensive testing for Kristin on her possible dairy allergy.  Kristin has been off of Dairy for a week now.  The Doctors office had me bring in dairy products that I feed her on a regular basis.  I picked up some chocolate milk from school (she loved using her lunch card to buy milk), Cream Cheese, String Cheese, Cheddar Cheese and her honey suckle flower. 

Ok ok I am going to get a little off track for a moment and share the honey suckle flower story, on the Tuesday that Kristin had her big allergic reaction, she told me that morning while we were waiting for school to start that she liked honey.  I looked at her kind of funny and asked her, “How do you know you like honey?”  I can’t remember a time that I have actually given her honey, especially more recently.  She then goes into detail that her friends and her go over to a plant on the fence by the playground and suck honey from the flowers like the bees do.  I then proceed to explain to her that sucking honey from flowers can make you very sick and that only bees can do that.  I made her promise me not to do that anymore.

Back to present day, so we were checked into our room and I handed the nurse the foods that we brought and the flower.  She took them out of the room and said she had to get them ready for testing.  She comes back in a few minutes later and I realize that they are going to do the skin test with the actual foods.  Kristin realizes that too and falls apart.  It took some huge coaxing and bribing of toys at the store and letting the doctor know that she was ok with the stuff on the counter in our room, but not to bring in the testing kit in, just the actual test.  They thought that was a great idea and Kristin finally agreed to the testing.

 Kristin got to cuddle with a Teddy Bear, even though she agreed, she was still upset for a little bit.

 To start off she drew on Kristin’s back labeling saline, Histamine and the numbers that they numbered each food and flower.  She got poked 8 times, with 8 different foods and pollen.  We had to wait 15 minutes for the test.  She seemed to be a little inflamed with the milk, cream cheese, and String cheese.  The cheddar cheese was slightly less and the plant was pretty much nonexistent.  The doctor came back in and looked at the results.  She then decided to wait a little bit longer to see if it changed any more.  Once they came back in they decided to an oral test.   What that consisted of is them diluting the chocolate milk to 1/1000 or 1/10000, I can’t remember.  They put it in a syringe without a needle and the squirt it in her mouth.  Then they made her blow into a respiratory tester thing.  About half way into the 15 minutes I noticed that her cheeks were becoming flush.  I opened the door to our room, no one was to be seeing and so I decided to look at the clock.  There was still 7 minutes left.  I went back in and waited for a little be longer and it seemed like at this point her face was starting to swell, so I opened the door again and looked at the time.  The doctor was at the desk, so I mentioned to her that she was flushed and her cheeks are swelling.  She came right in and agreed and stopped the test.  They immediately gave her some zyrtec , and decided that she was in fact allergic to milk.  She then wanted us to come back on Wednesday to check the cream cheese orally.  I told the nurse that I really didn’t want to put her through that again.  Her back results were pretty equal for milk, cream cheese and string cheese, so I would rather just be dairy free and come back in 3 months for a checkup.  She asked the doctor and she was fine with that solution. 

It might be a little hard to see, but all the the red dots are the allergens on her skin from today.

As a parent and a person myself allergic to foods, I felt there was no reason to closely monitor what possible dairy she might be able to have and what she couldn’t have.  It just seems easier to not allow it at all for now.  Hopefully in the future she will be able to go back to having dairy again, but for now, she will have to be dairy free.