Always Trust A Mother's Intuition

It has been a long week. It started because I thought that Dash had a slight rash around his mouth when he had a little peanut butter and when he took a bite of an energy bar with peanuts in it. I told our pediatrician about it and asked it they could test him for a peanut allergy. So they ran the common food allergen panel, which is the reason Dash had blood drawn.
We found out the results last week: negative to peanuts, positive to wheat, eggs and milk. Surely there is a mix-up I told the pediatrician. Dash has milk 3 times a day and eats yougart, cheese and tons of whole wheat bread. When I make my own bread, I add vital wheat gluten. If he was allergic to these things I would have seen some reaction! So they sent me to an allergist to help make sense of the results and figure out what to do.

I have been anxious all week...alternating between denial and looking at recipes for making cookies out of millet and barley and without egg. The whole time my gut telling me that Dash allergic to peanuts...that is what started this whole process!

We had our appointment this morning. Dash had a skin test for the common food allergens. Jack-Jack's guardian angel must have sung him a lullaby, because he slept for the entire 30 minutes that the test took so I could hold Dash the whole time. The skin test was definitively positive for egg and peanut. Egg is a common childhood allergy that Dash will almost certainly outgrow. However, 85% of kids don't outgrow peanut allergies. And a peanut allergy is potentially life-threatening.

The allergist said it was possible to have a positive blood test for wheat when you are allergic to grasses. Given my severe allergies, he suspects this is the cause of the false positive for wheat. And he doesn't believe that Dash is allergic to milk, either.

He likely tested negative on his blood test for peanuts because he has not had enough in his system to develop a high concentration of antibody against it. It is a huge blessing to have found this out before he had a severe reaction. So we will be vigilant and armed with our EpiPen at all times, though I pray we never have to use it.