Bad news comes back from the allergist...

The allergist's nurse called today with Connell's RAST test results. Of course it came back as being extremely positive for peanuts (which was no surprise to us). She reminded us that there is only a 10% chance that he will ever outgrow the peanut allergy. He must continue the peanut-free diet. His test also showed an extreme positive allergy to dairy. Many of you might remember that he was very allergic to dairy as a baby (never diagnosed by a doctor though) and drank soy/rice/almond beverages and avoided dairy products until we thought that perhaps he had outgrown it around 17 months or so (our diagnosis). Although we never let him drink milk even after 17 months, we let him eat cheese, yogurt, ice cream and didn't worry about dairy ingredients in anything. However, we thought in the back of our minds that his eczema behind the knees and in the crooks of the arms was perhaps dairy-related and now we see that it is probably true. The doctor has ordered that for at least 1-2 years that he avoid all dairy products and then they will retest him to see if it is outgrown. This will be a big change since he doesn't like to eat fruits and veggies, so his diet is mostly dairy. Then came another shocker...he tested very positive to tree nuts (particularly walnuts and pecans although they only tested him for a few choice tree nuts since it is impossible to test for all). The doctor has ordered a tree nut-free diet as well. As I spoke to the nurse and heard that part my first words were "but he eats those nuts all the time without any reactions" (which later I realized was a lie because neither Ray nor I can actually pinpoint the ingestion of either a pecan or a walnut -- he has had lots of almonds and perhaps hazelnuts and pistachios, but we can't think of anything with walnuts or pecans in them). The nurse pointed out that perhaps his reactions are quite mild, but you never know when it might become severe one day. So it has only been an hour or so since the news was delivered, but we are all in shock. This change in diet is massive. When I wouldn't let Connell have a yogurt or piece of cheese or pudding for supper, he was quite perplexed and I realized that it is going to be an uphill battle even trying to find foods for him to eat. The positive that I found in all of this is that the testing showed that he is not allergic to fish, shellfish, eggs, soy or wheat (at least at this point in his life) so we do have lots of cereal and meats and seafoods to choose from. I will end with the fact that I purposely didn't bring up Liam in the conversation with the nurse because the doctor had mentioned last week to us that we should probably avoid all the big allergens in any siblings of Connell until age 3 because he might be allergic to them too. We aren't ready for that since he eats a good variety of foods that include many of the main allergens and I don't want to deprive him of those things yet.