Last week James took Malachi to the Allergist to recheck his allergy to tree nuts. When he was 3 years old, I gave him one cashew and he immediately threw up and broke out in hives. Of course it happened at night so, after calling our PCP, I rushed him to the ER. He received steroids to counteract the reaction. A few weeks later we saw the Allergist who performed allergy tests on him. We found out he was allergic to all tree nuts.
By the age of 5, many kids will outgrow their food allergy so we were hopeful that this would be the case with Malachi. It's not always a fun trip to the store when you have to read EVERY label to see if not only they contain tree nuts, but also if they were manufactured in a place that also handles tree nuts. We couldn't buy many generic brands based on the latter. So we were hoping that it would make his life easier as well as cheaper!
But our hopes were dashed. He is still very much allergic to tree nuts. The Allergist also did an allergy panel to test for dust, mold, types of pollen and dogs/cats. He ended being allergic to everything EXCEPT cats! UGH! I have noticed that he rubs his nose a lot and his eyes are watery, but since I don't really like having the kiddos taking meds unless absolutely necessary, I have held off giving him Zyrtec. James and I are still weighing the pros and cons of him starting daily meds. I think we will wait to see if his allergies flare up more when he starts school. Who knows how many years of dust is in that building...we certainly don't want a miserable little Kindergartener.
So for now we will continue checking all the food labels and avoiding tree nuts. Next year he can have a blood test to check for the allergies so we will once again hope that he will outgrow this...
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