Good News!!!

Piper visited the allergist today. A few moments of discomfort for her were definitely worth the peace of mind it brought her mommy. After discussing her history with the doctor, he tested her skin for nine common food allergens (dairy, soy, beef, corn, peanuts, egg, shellfish, wheat, and tree nuts). She showed NO REACTION to any of them! This is fantastic! Not only do I not have to be so stringent with what she eats, but I can eat like a normal person again!

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I must explain how the allergist described Piper's condition. He said that her earliest symptoms (bloody, mucosy stool and ecxema) were probably the result of colitis caused by an immune reaction rather than a full-fledged allergic reaction (the latter would have other symptoms such as vomiting, rash, shortness of breath, etc. along with the previous symptoms). The colitis is triggered by an amount of the irritant, rather than the mere presence of the irritant. In other words, Piper might have a negative immune reaction to the dairy protein, but it is not an allergic reaction. Even if she never outgrows the colitis, which she should and is apparently on her way to doing, she will always be able to process some dairy.

Once every two months or so I attempted to reintroduce dairy by eating it myself. Before Piper was eating solid food, she continued to show a reaction to the protein with loose stools and sometimes diaper rash. But once she started solids, it became very difficult for me to gauge her reaction. Her stools were no longer green or loose no matter what she or I ate. Sometimes she would get diaper rash, but honestly that could have been blamed on a lot of different things. Last week I had a large peppermint-chocolate chip milkshake from Chick-fil-A (it was heavenly!), and I noticed NO REACTION from Piper in any form. This explains how her symptoms seemed to lessen and then disappear once she began eating solid foods along with nursing--she was getting less and less of the irritating protein.

Now don't get me wrong--I will not be serving up cold glasses of milk any time soon. I will, however, be slowly reintroducing dairy back into my diet (pizza tonight!) to see how Piper does. Hopefully by the time I'm ready to wean her at around a year old we can move to milk at that point. We might try yogurt or small amounts of cheese before then.

Piper was such a good sport during the testing. I don't remember the order of each prick, but #1 was soy and #2 was milk. Number 9, the one you can see that she reacted to, was the control, a histamine that the doctor uses to make sure her skin reacted to something. If Piper had reacted to any of the allergens, the other pricks would look like #9.

We are so thankful for this good news! I was selfishly very concerned about what in the world I would eat at Thanksgiving. Now I don't have to be quite so picky!