Allergy Testing

Jayden's doctor wanted him to get allergy testing done to rule in or out allergies as a possible reason for his continued wheezing. (Side note-- he is FINALLY better!)
On Wednesday, Jan. 6, we took him to an Allergy and Asthma Center and saw a great doctor. Jayden had some allergy testing done. He is such a brave baby. He has really been through so much lately. Between all of his regular shots, blood drawn/ x-rays at the hospital recently, and now had to get about 40 "pokes" in his back for allergy testing, gee whiz!

The allergy tests were done in sets of 5. On each set, he was tested for about 6 or 8 differnt things. The first set was dog, cat, dust mites, and things like that. The second set was cows milk, egg, peanut, soybean, rice, and wheat. Third set was corn, peach, orange, grape, apple, pear, lime, and banana. Fourth set was beef, chicken, lamb, tomato, turkey, pork, carrot, and squash. The fifth set was for oat, white potato, green bean, navy bean, barley, sweet potato, lima bean, and peas. The main thing we were looking for was the dog. We kept wondering what would happen if Jayden was allergic to Fred!

There is a TON more that they usually test for when they do allergy testing, but the doctor did not test for the last 8 sets. First they cleaned Jayden's back, then they laid him on his belly. I was holding his hands and talking to him. The first set went down on his back and he looked up at me with the biggest eyes and a huge smile. Then the second set went down and he looked up and let out a big scream! :( The girl did the "pokes" so fast, which was good. We had to hold him for 20 minutes and wait to see what happened. The doctors left and Jared and I waited in the room for 20 minutes holding Jayden. (who was SO GOOD!) Jared and I were freaking out as we watched the big red bumps all over Jayden's back get redder and redder and bigger and bigger. We thought he was going to be allergic to everything! (The really big ones that look like mosquito bites were the controls. That's how they know you aren't on any anti-histamines or anything.....





As it turns out, they all measured fine and Jayden is not allergic to anything. They rate every bump as a 0 through 5. 0 being the test did not show any allergy, 1 being borderline and you can eat the food unless you have a problem, blah blah 3 being the worst. Jayden got all 0's on everything except for a 1 on beef (weird!) and navy beans (we don't know what they are!) People can develop allergies anytime, but, for now, allergies are not a factor at all.

It is too early to test for asthma. With no family history, it is like a 5% chance or something for Jayden to have it, but after having bronchiolitis, his chances are more like 30%. We do not have to keep doing the nebulizer every 4 hours. We do have to keep the medicine on hand though in case he starts wheezing. He will probably get the wheezing every time he gets a cold and need to use the nebulizer every time he gets the cold. For now, he does have to continue a steroid through the nebulizer every night through RSV season.

Jayden is doing so much better. We did keep him out of daycare on Monday. (Thank you to Grammie- Jared's mom for babysitting). Tuesday and Wednesday Jared was home with him, Thursday he went to daycare, and Friday was a snow day! :) So he has only been to daycare 2 days in the last month! He really was happy to see his friends and teachers on Thursday. His face lit up with a huge smile when he saw them! We are just glad he's doing better. And for the record, all the horrible looking bumps on his back went away by that evening.

When we got home from the allergy testing, Jared ran over to Fred and yelled, "Fred!!!! You can stay!!!!"

:) thank goodness!