Recently, I decided to get my baby tested for food allergies. With the history that my two boys have had, I just wanted to make sure that there were no lingering issues as we moved forward with food trialing.
I had been suspicious that eggs were causing a problem with my little one when I was breastfeeding. It was one of the foods I had cut out of my diet when he was having all of his tummy issues. But, none of my children have ever been diagnosed with your typical IgE food allergies. IgE stands for Immunoglobulin E which is a type of antibody. When you have an allergic reaction that is IgE mediated, then it can cause a variety of symptoms like hives, wheezing, rashes, or even more severe reactions like anaphylactic shock. Although my kids have never been diagnosed with this type of allergy, it is present in my family on my husband’s side, so I’ve always been worried about it. So, I made an appointment to rule it out as a possibility before we decided to feed my little guy eggs. But, we received some unexpected results from the test.
We’ve been making great progress trialing solids and we had even recently started to introduce cow’s milk into my baby’s diet in the hopes that he would soon be weaned off the very expensive formula that he is on. But, the result from the skin prick test that was done by the allergist showed that eggs were not the problem, milk is. I have to say that we are really disappointed that we can’t move forward with yogurt, cheese, and milk. He also tested positive for being allergic to the cat.
I still have a lot of questions. I understand that when food allergy testing is done this young, the accuracy is questioned. A baby’s immune system is constantly changing and evolving. The doctor wanted to draw blood to look at the severity of the allergy and see what plan of action should be taken from here. I hope to speak to her again today. Hopefully we will get more answers as we try to determine what to do to move forward and make sure that he is getting all the nutrition he needs.
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