Dare I Hope?

I think I dare!

We discovered Caden's allergy to dairy around the time he was 9 months. He suffered from eczema since he was about 8 weeks of age. At the advice of his pediatrician, who insisted it was impossible for a breastfed baby to have food allergies, we gave Caden one piece of shredded cheese. He immediately went hoarse and started coughing. That incident prompted a transfer of care to another pediatrician who would allow us to visit an allergist and the official start of our food allergy journey.

After the initial visit to the allergist, which confirmed our suspicion that Caden was allergic to dairy, we also added a few other items to the list. After a spring check up, we added a few more, and so on until he turned 3, when we were able to reintroduce tomatoes.

We had one accidental exposure to dairy when Caden was 15 months (anaphylaxis and an ER trip on that one), and a fair few incidences of contact hives from dairy. We transferred care to a state university allergy clinic where the allergists and interns are much more hands on, must more up to date in allergy care, and much more supportive of food trials.

Based on the advice of the allergist, we have safely added eggs into baked goods within certain specific parameters. We were going to trial those in office, but a tart baked just outside of the specified parameters proved that wasn't the best use of our time. Our trial for peanuts was delayed due bad seasonal allergies this past fall. We intend to reschedule that soon.

At any rate, onto the part about hope. We ordered Subway last week. While I definitely wouldn't recommend to an allergic, we ate there. My husband ordered a plain sandwich for Caden and one with cheese for Jon. And Subway mislabeled them. D'oh! I was so angry at myself for not double checking before giving Caden the sandwich. He had already ingested a mouth sized bite of cheese when we realized the sandwiches were not labeled correctly. We kept a close eye on him. No hives, no funny voice, no eczema!

I intend to discuss this with his allergist when we visit again, and I don't have enough hope to believe he's actually outgrown it, especially after his numbers in 2009. However, he has improved in how sensitive he is at the very least! I cannot believe that there might actually be a day where he can eat dairy. Fingers crossed for good news from the allergist.