IDENTIFIED!! We gotcha on our radar allergens!

So yesterday was the highly anticipated Allergy Testing for the sweet little love. She's been pretty fussy and irritable the last 2 weeks or so, in large part because of the ucky virus that invaded her adorable and usually very healthy body, she also cut her last 2 teeth about a week ago as well. Well, in all actuality, they cut her, but whatever... ;) At any rate, we knew that she was not going to be her usual happy easy-going self with the doctor even before she got poked/scratched. We were right. Although she did exceptionally well with the actual testing.
We went into this with quite a bit of fear but also a great sense of impending relief. At last, no more eating out, shopping, cooking in fear of what she "might" be allergic to. We'll have a definite list of offenders and we can go from there. I was thinking she was probably going to be allergic to several foods not to mention pollens and who knows what animals and misc evils. Well.......I was wrong!

Her moderate-severe reaction to eggplant aside (it's not a common offender so they don't test for it unless you bring some in), it turns out that her other reactions were contact reactions, not systemic. ~Big sigh of relief~
She tested negative to all of the foods they tested her for which was the 10 major allergens as well as a couple of other tree nuts. The doctor said that her eczema has just made her skin so much more sensitive to irritants that it reacts even when the rest of her body does not. So the reaction to the nuts is not a TRUE severe food allergy. BUT he did say that we absolutely still need to treat it as such. Because nuts are such a common and SEVERE allergen, based on her skin reaction from brief touch, the more she's exposed the more likely she is to develop into a full allergy. So, per the allergist, for all intents and purposes, she is allergic to ALL nuts. He said we'll reevaluate when she's about 3 to see if we dare start introducing them or if we just continue on our current path. So....we are almost officially a completely nut free home (occupants excluded of course!). I've been working on it since easter but we've still had a couple of potentials ("produced in a plant that also processes tree nuts") lingering. I had also kept the peanut butter because I wasn't nearly as concerned since I know she's had slight traces and she's touched it. Well, after the allergists', it's now goin out the door. This last step is the one that is posing a road block as far as Dominic is concerned. He's been perfectly content basically living off of PB&J for his lunches. He can't take processed meat all the time (his body is just not a fan) and non-processed is quite costly. So, this weekend we'll be looking into other alternatives (me batch making chicken strips, chk/corn patties, etc). That issue aside, we're doin great!

We did find out that she's quite allergic to dogs though. Her reaction size was about the size of a 50 cent piece! Who'da thunk it? :) It's perfectly fine by me, I'm sooo not a dog person anymore. Now don't get me wrong, I can tolerate some and there are even a few I really like, but on the whole, I'm done with dogs. Being raised with Larger-than-average-size Great Danes (and other large breeds), I am soooooo over drool and hair and the constant need for attention and cleaning up after them, etc etc etc... I'm so much more a cat person. Too bad that I'm allergic, as is Dominic and most likely Evan. ~Sigh~ Oh well. One less being to care for, feed, and clean up after. I'm definitely good with that!!! :)

Other than dogs, she's also allergic to dust (HAHAHAHAHA, apparently not too severely given the state of my house!!!) and a mold that is in ALL soil. That explains her allergy symptoms when she's been outside. Nothing too severe though. ~Whew!~

So there ya have it. A full run down of our Allergy Testing experience. LOL
I'm sure it's JUST what you wanted to read about today, but Thank You for reading anyway! :)

I hope that you have an excellent, allergen free Thursday!!! We intend to! :)

Mo