Joy in kid world. And freaking out your sister.

Yes, my poor son is one of those food allergy kids. I shared about his jarring introduction to allergic reactions a long while ago, and now that he’s three we recently had a food challenge in ye ole doctor’s office. That’s when you starve your child until you reach the doctor’s office and then slowly feed him a food he’s previously reacted to and wait & watch as you incrementally increase the amount of the potentially death-inducing food. For four hours. With a three year old. In a small examination room. It’s a peach.

A little background for those not willing to delve into the depth of my hyperlinking (I don’t blame you–so often my older posts had bad photos, and link to the old blog so everything’s a big ? over there): SuperBoy was allergic to peanut, egg, and reacted to pine nut. Blood tests confirmed all this, as did a lovely trip to ER when he was 18 months old and ate peanut for the first time. Charmed, I’m sure. IGG versus IGE testing is whole other blog post, but he appears to be sensitive to a variety of foods as well.

A few great resources: Food Allergy Support Group of MN, It’s an Itchy Little World, and my girlfriend Abby’s blog about her son’s allergies.

The egg part, well, egg is molecularly different when it’s baked into (not onto) other foods–the chemistry changes. So baked eggs weren’t off limits, thankfully, just things like scrambled eggs, french toast, eggs in any you-can-see-the-egg form. We discovered this when he vomited up hard boiled eggs at 8 months, and then 12 months. So if your kid pukes up the egg, he or she may be allergic. Just saying. Confirm with blood test with ye ole doc, though.

Our allergist is a great doctor, and had given us hope he’d outgrow the egg allergy, encouraging us to return for an egg challenge in the office at age 3. So a few weeks back, I scrambled up some farm fresh eggs, carried them and a dozen baseball cards, books, and markers into the office to hunker down for a challenge. Instead after discussing a rash/hive breakout that he’d had when accidentally fed french toast (post the blood work saying he was over his allergy), and as it had been a mere week since his ER wheezing visit, AND because he seemed to be grappling with seasonal allergies, we booted the eggs to the door, and did environmental allergy skin testing instead. Equally fun, but much much shorter office visit.

Fast forward to this past week. Eggs in hand. Baseball cards in hand. Coloring book, reading books, and a penchant for begging the nurse for stickers included, we braved the eggs. After four hours of trying to keep him happy, eating, and not spasszzzing out in the confined space:

He is no longer allergic to eggs.

And the skies opened. Sun beam shown down. Scrambled eggs it is. Hurrah! The end.

Our next foray into allergy foods will be introducing SweetPea to both peanuts (gulp) and eggs. She’s a mere 15 months, that slip of a girl, and I’m terrified to go down this route. Armed with a junior epi-pen and benedryl, I guess it’s time. She had food sensitivities to something I was eating back wayyyyy long ago. Since then she eats like a horse–though all 19 pounds of her wouldn’t say it–and has had no food impediments. I’ll keep you posted. Fingers crossed.