So after my daughter (we'll call her C) had a reaction to peanut butter over a month ago, we finally saw her allergist last Monday. My husband and I really liked him a lot. He is young, very knowledgeable, and involved in research related to food allergies which I think are all great attributes for a doctor to have. At C's appointment, he questioned us on her history, and basically told us that based on the fact she developed facial hives after eating peanut butter, that was enough to diagnose her with a peanut allergy (as if I hadn't already figured as much after all of my stalking the internet after the incident).
The next part of our appointment was the skin prick testing (SPT), where he tested her for peanuts, tree nuts and shellfish. I think it was harder on me than on my little girl. She did manage to give the nurse a dirty look though after she was poked, a quick cry, and then we went back to reading our books and playing with our iPad.
There were several reddened areas on her back almost immediately and I figured that wasn't a good sign. After about 15-20 minutes, the nurse came back in to document which ones she had reactions to, and then the Dr. came in to see us again. Based on her SPT, we were told to avoid peanuts, all tree nuts, and shellfish. We were told to follow up with blood work for RAST testing which will show him how likely or unlikely it is for her to possibly outgrow the allergies. As for the shellfish, he wasn't 100% convinced, but told us that he will let us know the results when he gets them, but to avoid all three for now.
We have our Benadryl and Epi-pens with us at all times now!
So here we are now...beginning our journey with food allergies. One of the things that stuck with me that the Dr. said was, "this is life". He didn't say it in a rude or condescending way, but it made a lot of sense to me. Life is not always what you expect, good or bad, so this diagnosis for our little girl is just part of life. I wish we weren't dealing with this, but there are much worse things that people are going through at any given moment.
