My Allergy Kid

I had posted previously that Mason had an appointment with an Allergist/Immunologist/Pulmonologist today down at Children’s and so this is an update on his condition.

His blood tests showed there is no immune system disease, which is great, but his immune system is underdeveloped (most likely by him being born a little too early). The allergies are VERY severe. His numbers on the blood tests showed that his dairy, egg, tree nut and peanut are about as bad as a persons allergies can get. The doctor today said that they pretty much can’t get any worse in a child this age. She said he’d be lucky to outgrow the dairy and egg by age 10-15 and he’ll most likely never outgrow the peanut/tree nut. She confirmed what we were hoping was overprotective-ness from his pediatrician that he just can not touch anything if we don’t know what/who has touched it before him (grocery carts, playgrounds, crayons….etc). This means no preschool or school, and in her educated opinion she said if Mason was her child, she wouldn’t send him until he is at least 10 and has gone through some training courses they offer at the Cincinnati Children’s Food Allergy Clinic that teach kids all about their allergies and how to self medicate in the event of anaphylaxis.

His environmental allergies were also pretty bad with dogs, cats, grass, and mold being the worst. The major concern with those is his asthma.

So really the news isn’t anything more than what we had previously assumed…it’s all just confirmed now. The allergist put him on some asthma/allergy medication to take daily for preventative measures and we’ll see how that gets us through the upcoming spring allergy season. I’m a lot less concerned with the environmental allergens than I am the food allergies. We have our inhalers, nebulizer, Benadryl, Claritin and epi-pens ready for any situation we may encounter. We’re hoping for a healthy spring!

They offered recommendations that we get special air filters for our home as well as put certain hypoallergenic mattress covers on his bed. We also invested in the asthma and allergy Dyson Vacuum in hopes of getting the floors even cleaner for him to minimize allergens there.

As for the cause of the allergies, it is the underdeveloped immune system from early birth that has been ruled as the “cause”.