Allie's Abnormal Appetite: ENT Results

Allie had a follow up appointment with her ENT (Dr. Edmonson) this morning. We discussed the fact that we got a second opinion on her allergies and I showed him the results that Dr. Thompson shared with me on the phone last week. According to Dr. Edmonson, the only allergy which might be a "true allergy" is milk. Her IgE numbers for that was 2.63 and anything above 0.34 could be an allergy to that item.

We talked about the fact that Allie is eating corn products again and we haven't seen any change in her behavior or vomiting. We have seen an increase in her oral intake but not a significant increase.

Last week Allie went to get blood drawn at the clinic to check her chem panels however they couldn't get her vein and after two pokes, I made them stop. Since Allie needed to get blood drawn again, Dr. Edmonson suggested we do a RAST allergy test to double check her IgE levels. This is the same test that Dr. Thompson ran. Keep in mind, Dr. Edmonson tested Allie for a milk allergy twice and it came back negative (he did a skin prick test and a patch test). Dr. Thompson did a RAST test and it came back positive. So, I don't know which test to believe and since she was getting blood drawn anyway, it was a good idea to just re-run the RAST test and compare the results to Dr. Thompson. So, that's what we are doing. We should get the results in 1-2 weeks.

If her RAST test comes back with a positive milk allergy, this will be the plan:

1) Continue to let Allie eat corn products for 1 week

2) After that 1 week, start adding corn products to Allie's blends - do this for 3 weeks and watch for reactions.

3) If Allie doesn't have any reaction for 3 weeks, consider her not allergic to corn

4) Remove all milk from her diet for 3 weeks and watch her for any changes

5) If there are no changes after 3 weeks, start giving her milk again.

6) Start giving Allie gluten again for 3 weeks and watch for any changes (she is currently gluten free)

7) If there are no changes with having gluten, continue to allow her to eat gluten. We think Allie is gluten sensitive but we aren't sure - plus there is so many different ranges of being gluten sensitive. Since taking Allie off gluten in December, we haven't seen any changes in her - so now the doctors are questioning whether she's really gluten sensitive or not. The one true way to find out is to do an oral challenge with it.

I am happy with this plan. Keep in mind if her new RAST test comes back as negative to milk, we will not be removing milk from her diet. Milk will be a tough one right now because the two things Allie is actually eating is yogurt and chocolate pudding. However the good thing about a milk allergy, most kids outgrow it by the age of 5.

After this appointment we headed right back over to the clinic where Allie needed to get her blood drawn. At this point, I still hadn't told her what we were going there for. Once we entered the building and she heard me tell the receptionist we needed lab, Allie freaked out. She cried until they were done with her blood draw. On a positive note, there was a different girl there today and she got a vein on the first poke. Allie and I were both very relieved. It never gets easier seeing your little one go through some of this!

So, Allie has a couple more appointments coming up this week:

Tuesday - 11:15 - meet her new private therapist that will work on her speech and eating therapy. Tomorrow is an evaluation to figure out how much therapy Allie will need and how we are going to approach everything.

Wednesday - 9:30 - meet with her new therapist through the school system. This is a first time evaluation. We already know that Allie will receive speech therapy once a week for a half hour.

Wednesday - 2:15 - meet with Dr. Brown. This is a follow-up to determine what is next and discuss how well Allie's been doing since January.

That about sums up what has been happening here. We had a great Easter in Escanaba with family - it was wonderful to see everyone. Here are a couple pictures from Easter.....