As most of you already know, we have been on a strict diet with Audree as we were told told a year ago when she had her first allergy tests to avoid all items that came up as positive. Tough to do? You bet!!! But I'm proud to say that we've successfully done it! (diet with no nuts, dairy, eggs, wheat, soy, rye, barley, oats, strawberries... and I think a few others that I'm missing).We had our first visit to to the allergist today, of whom I was very impressed with!! A doctor that will make a fool of himself and make elephant and monkey noises and silly motions to keep my daughter happy...and is a good Dr on top of that is worth his/her weight in gold!! I expected to go through the whole array of allergy tests, but in the end, all he did was send us for another blood test, which took 30 seconds.
He looked at her test results from last year and said that most likely a lot of those were false positives and the blood test isn't completely accurate. Now, as for milk, eggs and nuts, though, there's a definite allergy there, but the others, most likely she never really had an allergy to them. Geeeee, now you tell me!!! That could have saved a lot of heart ache!!! Audree's previous pediatrician posed as someone who was a specialist in allergies, but I'm now wondering what kind of training he actually had.
Anyway, back to our visit with the allergist..... he called for testing of everything that showed up positive last year to determine if her numbers have gone down at all, he will call next week with the results. He told me that as for the other foods (dairy, nuts, eggs), there is an 85% chance that those will go away by the time she is 5 yrs old. That's something I wanted to hear!
Don't get all excited yet! We still have to go through the introduction process of those foods that are potentially false positives to make sure that she tolerates them. We have already done wheat, I haven't been consistent with oats, but will get her on those and see how she does, then try the other grains one at a time and then strawberries and soy.
I tell you what, a diet free of dairy, eggs and nuts is a whole lot easier (and easier on the food bill) than what we have been doing the past year!! I'm excited for the results!!
We were also told a couple other things related to skin care... I had already taken her off the Johnson's baby washes and shampoos becuase I noticed she wasn't itching as much when we didnt use them... but they told us that the Johnson's brand is probly one of the worst things you can use a on a baby's skin because of all the fragrances and stuff in it.... smells pretty, but it's really not! I started using something that's all natural and it's not the best smelling when we're using it, but it's natural and no fragrances (all the ingredients are pronouncable) and not causing the itchies!! Also, dryer sheets are a no-no!!! They are hard on anybody's skin. If fabric softener is necessary, use the liquid stuff and do a second rinse. I'm guilty of dryer sheets... looks like I have a whole day of rewashing Dree's clothes ahead.
