Allergies

Stokes has shown a few signs that he might have some sort of allergy. Every now and then, his cheeks and the area right around his mouth will break out in a red rash. Thomas actually is the more observant parent and noticed that it happened a few times when we gave him eggs. I called his pediatrician and got a referral to an allergist.

We just went to his appointment last Friday and they did a skin test. They basically gently prick him with a saline (the control to make sure his skin isn't overreacting), a histamine (to make sure his skin will react) and then they tested for milk and eggs. We didn't think he had a milk allergy since he gets regular whole milk in a sippy cup now and has been on a milk based formula for a long time, but thought we may as well test it while we were there.

Within a few minutes we had our answer. He is allergic to eggs. His doctor said that there is an 85% chance that he'll grow out of it by the time he's 8, and possibly much sooner. We'll test again in 6 months, but until then we have to avoid all eggs and things that contain eggs. I'm going to have to be a food label reader for the first time in my life! Avoiding eggs will cut down on the number of good breakfast options I though of or have given them in the past. It's typical that I will give them Cheerios, fruit and yogurt. I've tried grits before a while back and they didn't love them, but I tried them again this morning.  Stokes and William seemed to like them okay, but Ryan was not impressed. Leave me a comment if you have some good breakfast ideas, sans eggs! ;)

Picture taken at the allergist's office. You can see the minimal
reaction to the milk (M) and saline (S) pricks. The histamine (H)
had the most severe reaction and the egg (E) was fairly mild,
but indicated that he does have an allergy.

The aftermath...

Enough time had passed and the reactions had basically
disappeared.