So today was the big day. We had our appointment with the allergist at 11am. Sienna actually slept really well which was nice. She did wake up at 10:30pm...well she didn't wake up, she was just screaming and crying in her sleep talking about getting her babies out and doing dishes. Was very weird. Other than that she slept until 7:30am so that was a good start.
We had tried to explain what was going to happen as best we could without scaring her. There were a few toys at the office so she was pleasantly occupied while we talked to the doctor. Let me just say that Dr. Sorg is absolutely fantastic. He genuinely seemed interested in what happened and what her history was. He was very personable, had a great sense of humor and even talked to us a bit about his own kids. We've been incredibly lucky to have seen very few doctors but he is by far the best we've had. We were in no way rushed or brushed aside or made feel like we were stupid or didn't know anything. I really can't say enough good things about him.
After taking her history and hearing that she's only had issues with peanuts and possibly cats (she kind of had a reaction one night after she smothered herself in Janie's belly ha), he told us he would only test her for those two. We were totally ok with that. He said he could for 30some foods but at one poke per food it gets a little much. He said he wouldn't do that and felt it was cruel for a two year old to go through all of that. I'm sure if we put up a fight he would've done whatever but his reasoning sat well with us. They do a control (water, to see how her skin reacts to the "poke") and a histamine (something to make her skin react) so they have something to compare to. His assistant came in, explained what she was going to do and got Kyle to hold her on his lap. She did GREAT. The assistant drew two "C"s, a "H" and a "P" (control, cat, histamine and peanut) on her arms and Sienna thought that was hilarious. The first poke was the peanut one and Sienna just looked unimpressed. She didn't cry or yell but did try to move her arm away. The other three she did nothing. Just sat there. I was SO impressed. Kyle and I were both quite nervous about how she would do. After the pokes she left us and said the Dr. would be in in a few minutes. Sienna asked me for a green sucker (I have little sugar free sucking candies in my purse) so I gave her one and she walked around happy as a clam eating it while we waited.
I took these about a minute in. As you can see the peanut droplet reacted pretty badly ha. Even worse than the histamine. The hive got quite big and raised quite quickly.
After the doctor came back in he took a look and kind of lightly said "well...she's positive for peanuts!" We just laughed and said "uh ya we figured." He said "well, you know, we label them so you can watch as well in hopes you see for yourself but you never know haha." I don't mean to sound like I'm taking this lightly but we've been treating it like she's had a peanut allergy for almost a year so nothing has really changed. We just KNOW now. Yes it sucks but things could be a lot worse right? I guess the statistics are that if the hive was 8mm or larger she has a 95% she'll have a systemic reaction. That's with no history (no previous reaction or no knowledge of one). WITH her history of a reaction he said that percentage goes up to close to 100%. Pretty certain (although we were pretty certain before ;) ). There's a 15% chance she'll outgrow it by 5 or 6 years old, after that the chances decrease. Not great odds but hey we'll take it. There's also a 30% chance she's allergic to tree nuts as well so we're to keep avoiding those as well (like we have been). We go back and see him in a year, every year. I'm sure we'll do a bit more testing then just to rule things out. Oh ya, speaking of ruling out, no cat allergy (if you couldn't tell from the arm picture). Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling. All in all, it was a great experience considering. She did wonderfully, the doctor was awesome and we got a confirmation for a question we'd been asking for a year.
Here's a few pictures from after her nap, we went in the backyard for a bit.
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