Yes, You May Still Call Her "Peanut" If You Wish

"you should cut / paste this email onto your blog as the update!"

Good idea, Aunt Beth. This will save me some time, and anyone with questions can leave a comment or email me.

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Subject: Re: is today allergist day!?!?!
On Tue, Oct 28, 2008, Kate wrote:
hi, everybody! well, today was allergist day, and I think it went well. door to door the whole thing took 4 hours. we took lots of toys and books with us, thank goodness.
short story: they did skin testing for eggs, peas, green beans and sesame, and she is allergic to all of those. (so, she is supposed to be off all legumes, which includes basically any bean.) (the skin testing was crazy looking -- it looks like you're giving someone intentional mosquito bites, and then telling them not to touch it for 15 minutes.)
they did blood testing for peanut, garlic, spinach, apples, quinoa, and I can't 100% remember but maybe more beans? we will find out those results at the end of this week or early next week.
we are allowed to, 1 at a time, over the course of the next few weeks, add dairy, wheat and soy back into her diet. I think this is basically based on the fact that there are a lot of false positives in the type of blood allergy testing that was previously performed on Georgia, and since she had, for example, been eating dairy like yogurt and cheese for several months with no apparent problems, they think it's okay. Same goes for wheat and soy. The false positives in children with eczema can be up to 50%, whereas if you get a negative result, that is 95% accurate.
So, I am thrilled at the prospect of the long list of foods this will open up. I'm cautiously optimistic, because to me it is hard to say what part of her eczema may have been caused by such things. Or all her crazy loose frequent stools in August -- although they seemed to think that would be a less likely result of allergy. As you might imagine, some of that kind of thing is a little hard to decipher, b/c she was also probably eating some of these other allergenic foods (like peas, green beans) at the time.
So, anyway, if we add these things back in and notice problems, we'll obviously call them back to discuss and find out more, but for now -- mac and cheese, here we come!
They sent us home with lots of literature to read and web resources and support groups. Plus lists that help you live a tree nut, peanut, egg free diet -- I guess there are a lot of words on labels that you have to look for - words for the proteins, so it won't just say "eggs" but there may be eggs in your pre-made hamburgers, for example.
Oh - and the stuff that says "trace amounts" or "same equipment" or "same factory" --- she can't have any of those if it pertains to peanuts, tree nuts, or eggs, or anything really, except that of course there is no labeling that says 'made in the same factory with green beans'. : )
Um, what else? Gotta wash hands, mouth, utensils, etc. very carefully if it has come into contact with any of this stuff - can't eat a pb&j and then kiss her.
Okay, I'll stop now, and you can ask me whatever questions when we speak next.
bye!
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That's the scoop. Oh, and also, we don't really buy pre-made hamburger patties, that was just an example that the nurse gave. : )

After two months of waiting, this doctor's appointment had a lot of hype surrounding it. Let's just say, I actually wrote the woman a letter last week in anticipation of meeting with her. I asked Joe on Monday if he was scared that I was just a wee bit overly keyed up for it - if my expectations were too high. "Well, I think you think there's going to be a rock concert there, and then at the end of it, the doctor is going to toss a pill in Georgia's mouth and she won't have allergies anymore."

So, yeah, it was sort of like that.