Allergies...

Over the past couple of months, David has been displaying signs of some type of allergy. He occasionally will get red blotchy patches and hives on his face around his mouth. He had the reaction to an oatmeal cookie, a chocolate chip cookie and lasagna. We decided the only common ingredient was eggs and flour, but he eats crackers all the time and doesn't break out like that, so we decided it was the eggs. So, we have been checking labels and not giving him anything with egg in it. Sunday night, however, we had family birthday parties and he had a couple bites of cake. No reaction (much like the muffin he was fed a week or two prior). This made me confused and unsure of what to avoid. Monday morning comes along and breakfast time was upon us. He had oatmeal and a banana, just like most mornings. It's like his favorite breakfast. He got a little messy eating the banana and his entire onesie was soaked in banana. I decided to strip him down in the sink to rinse him off so he wouldn't be sticky, and when I pulled his shirt off, his entire stomach and torso were bright red! Everywhere that had been wet with the banana was red and starting to raise. I washed him with some baby soap and left his shirt off so I could watch him. It started to spread. and get worse. He broke out in hives all over...big hives. they spread to his arms and legs and lasted for over an hour. I gave him some benadryl which finally started working and then he took a nap. I called the Dr and they scheduled me for an appt that day. He told me that it was pretty much impossible to tell what was causing the reaction because they had been to different foods. So, he ordered allergy tests. We headed down to the lab and got in super fast (gotta love Kaiser). They took us to the baby room and had me lay him down on the table. She tied the thing around his little arm, rubbed him with alcohol and stuck in the needle. He whimpered like 3 or 4 times and then was quiet. He just laid there. I had my arm across his chest in case he tried to move and he never did. He didn't pull away from the phlebotomist, he didn't squirm or kick or cry. He was sooooo good! She was super surprised and said she wished she had a toy to give him, but we settled with piglet and tigger stickers. I was so proud of him being such a big boy when he's such a little baby still... Anyway, we had to wait until Wednesday for the results and it took forever! In the end, we discovered he had zero reaction to most things. We did the enviromental panel (grasses, pollen, dogs and cats) and the food panel (peanuts, wheat, eggs, dairy, etc.) with the add-ons of chocolate, oatmeal and bananas. Wheat and bananas were a 1 and eggs and cats were a 2. Sooo, we try not to let him pet the cat anymore, and he no longer eats crackers or cheerios...his favorite foods. His favorite fruit is also now out of the picture. So the doctor said that most likely it is the combination of more than one of the allergens because the reaction is pretty minimal. Hopefully he will outgrow these, but we have started making changes in our meal planning nevertheless. He LOVES mangoes and canteloupe, so we have new fruits to eat, but he chokes on Kix and Trix. He eats corn chex, but it's just not the same. He can't even have those baby puffs anymore! I bought him some rice cakes and he likes them, but shopping now involves lots of label looking. Wheat is in almost everything! We'll be trying out some brown rice pasta I found this next week, so I'll have to post how that goes. For now, we'll just pray he doesn't have a more serious reaction to anything and that he doesn't have these allergies for the rest of his life... Here are some pictures of his little bandaged arm. He was pretty pooped after the doctor's visit.