Olivia's allergies

In February we found out Olivia (my 5 yrs old) is allergic to milk,wheat,corn/corn syrup/corn starch,pork,barely,banana,eggs,oats, tomato,rye. And a very low allergy to strawberries, rice,potato,peanuts & oranges. In October,the day of my neck surgery,she ended up getting some red rash spots on the insides of her thighs and her girly part. The Dr.s and I thought it was a yeast infection so we treated it but it didn't so much as heal one spot. I started to think it was allergies because she had started to get random bouts of hives,but the Dr.s assured me it wasn't. We tried a couple more creams giving each of them time to do their job. Meanwhile she was getting worse and I began documenting food intakes and taking pictures of the hives she'd get afterwards. We were referred to a Dermatologist who I was praying would tell me Olivia had allergies,not that I wanted her to have them but to finally get some answers. Olivia was having one of her worse days yet,having a head to toe in an itchy sand paper rash and the second the Derma Dr. came in she said "WOW this kid has allergies"! I cried. My poor baby was miserable and we were finally closer to helping her. She gave her some cream to heal the rash but we needed to see an allergy Dr. asap. I was already 3 steps ahead of her and had called and made the appointment myself a week prior. The allergy Dr. ended up being a total quack and I'll sum it up with he sent her for an MRI thinking her nasal passage was packed (head allergies),put her on Zyrtec,told me she didn't have food allergies and refused to do any allergy testing for it,but did test her for pollens etc. I demanded he at least test for milk and showed him the pictures. He huffed,among his horrible attitude,and tested her for milk. Turns out she was allergic to milk,yet he still wouldn't test for more foods. I left the office crying and drove to the first Dr.'s office,the one who referred us to the Derma Dr, just as they were closing and asked her to please order the simple stinking blood test to test for allergies for my poor little girl. This was a Friday afternoon. She did. Saturday afternoon I was driving on the freeway and got a call from this Dr. saying she just happened to be in the office and Olivia's allergy test came back already and she wanted to meet me in person. So we met 5 minutes later. The Dr. apologized for not listening to me an then admitted Olivia needed to be seen by another Dr. who can better care for her. I cried. But was already 3 steps ahead of her too and had 2 Dr. appointments lined up with a Naturopathic Dr. and another highly recommended Family Dr. Both of whom I now LOVE dearly!

It's been very challenging for all of us and I live day to day. I will admit I mourned for a couple months over the fact that I couldn't fix my daughter, That's a rough feeling as a mama to not be able to help your crying child who's hurting. When I first took her into the Naturopath Olivia looked like death. She was pale,had been pale for some time and I told the Dr. I was minutes away from taking her into the ER. She said she would have too,but that Olivia was fine but very sick and that I needed to stick to the strict food chart and she'd get feeling better. About 2 weeks later I brought her back in for a check up and the Dr. was amazed. She said she wasn't the same sick little girl who was in there 2 weeks prior. The foods she was eating were just attacking every cell in her body.

I wish she were allergic to just one thing..say..just Milk. Oh how easy that would be. The hard part in ALL of this is even with her food eliminations she's still having skin "outbreaks". They vary in conditions,shapes,sizes. Sometimes it's hundreds of pin point dots on the insides of her arms,chest & tailbone,sometimes it's raw spots on her thighs,or blotching all over her body from scalp to toe. Her Naturopathic Dr. has her on different vitamins and such to help her body & gut heal quicker. Olivia had her 2 month check up a few weeks ago with the Naturopath and I expressed my concerns with her outbreaks. She explained that although we've done a great job at eliminating the foods and that Olivia is doing SO much better,that the allergy food nutrients and such have been stored in her fat,linings etc.. so those will take some time to go away and I needed to remember it's only been 2 months. Olivia's always been on the chubby-ish side and has lost 3lbs already and she said if she loses a little more weight that it will help more.

So I guess we sit and wait. The rashes really bother me though,and it's not like we can put steroid creams on her everyday. The good news is that she had blood work done at the 2 month check up and her overall IgE (Immunoglobulin E) allergy level went from 3,324 at day one,down to 2,700. Normal is 393 or below,so it came down 624 points. Of course I did some instant math and if she continued at this rate we're looking at October for her counts could be back to normal range and by then I hope her rashes are GONE!!