So we had our allergy appointment yesterday. First, when the allergist checked K's lungs he said "I hear what I wouldn't call 'wheezing' exactly, but something more like a precursor to asthma wheezing... we will need to watch that." Oh, wonderful. That didn't really surprise me, however, because my brother suffered from asthma throughout childhood. Bummer. Then they did pulled out all the stops to test him - 24 pinpricks with allergens on his little back. Poor baby! He was a brave little boy though, and only cried a tiny bit (although, thankfully, he soon got distracted by a little plastic bus he found under the doctor's examining table). We had to wait 15 minutes after the test to see how he reacted to the allergens. This is a picture of what it looked like, for those of you who are interested. Those red dots you see are what the allergic reaction looks like (the one on the top left side of his back is part of the control group - it's "histamine" - and the pin prick above that is just to test his sensitivity to the pricks in general - it's saline.) Having struggled with allergies throughout childhood, the "pinprick test" was no big deal to me since I had to have it done all the time. However, I quickly learned that others didn't have such a cavalier reaction. I sent these photos to my husband on my iPhone while we were waiting for the test results, with no proper context or explanation, and I immediately got a frantic phone call: "What the heck is going on? What is that on his back? Is he alright?" Anyway, we got the results back immediately and... (drumroll, please)... the good news is he is only allergic to three things, one way more than the other two. Tree pollen is a doozy (3+ on a scale from 0-5 with 5 being out-of-this-world highly allergic), followed by milk (1+) and tomato (1). The bad news is tree pollen is... EVERYWHERE I CAN SEE. We have to give him baths every night (to make sure it gets out of his hair so he doesn't bring it into bed with him), keep our windows and doors closed (so much for that fresh spring air), and keep our car windows rolled up when driving. Argh! And we also need to give him Children's Zyrtec and an OTC nasal spray called Nasal Chrom every night for the next month (by which time pollen season should, God willing, be over). We'll go back and check in with the allergist at the end of June. So there you have it. As for the other allergens, the doctor doesn't think we need to change our milk regimen (since he looooves his whole milk) unless it starts to really bother him. And the tomato allergy was so inconsequential that the doctor didn't even mention it to me - I just saw it on the sheet he gave me afterward. The really great news is he has no allergies to 1) dust (yay, I don't have to feel guilty about a messy house!) and 2) animals. Our beloved yet maligned cat dodged a bullet!
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