I started writing this post a few weeks ago after James had an encounter with a dog that belongs to one of my dear friends. Toward the end of our visit at her house, I wanted him to play with her dog, mostly because he LOVES dogs, and also because the most recent research suggests that earlier exposure to common allergens reduces baby's risk of developing allergies. So, I let him rub the dog's fur all over and let the dog get into James' face a good bit. After leaving her house, we stopped by the library to turn in some books. On the way there, James was pretty fussy in the back seat. I figured he was just getting sleepy. Once we arrived and I went around to get James out of his car seat, I found this:
The photos don't really do it justice - his face was bright red and his little eyes were almost swollen shut. He also had some hives around his eyes. He was not having any trouble breathing, so I called his pediatrician (from the library parking lot!). They told me to go ahead and give him a baby dose of Benadryl. They had to calculate based on his weight over the phone with me - mg/kg - because he is less than 1 year old. The bottle actually says to not give to any children less than 4 years old. No wonder Dr. Z wanted us to wait to try peanuts...
This photo was taken at home, about 10 minutes after taking the Benadryl. Eyes wide open! The funny thing is that the Benadryl didn't seem to make James sleepy at all. He only took a 1 hour nap after this (which is shorter than his normal, non-Benadryl naps). I'm still baffled as to why he had this reaction. He has been around lots of different dogs, lots of different times, and never had any problem. The only thing different is this time, I let the dog lick James in the face. I suppose it could be an allergy to the saliva (which is what Stuart has, so it makes sense). We'll just need to be careful around dogs from here on out!
Fast forward a few weeks to this morning - I finally got my hands on some good quality, organic eggs, and James was getting tired of oatmeal every morning for breakfast, so we decided today was the day to try something new! I scrambled him a little egg and put it on his tray. He took a few bites, then started fussing. I figured he just didn't like it, so I added some fruit and O's so he would have something for breakfast. A few minutes later, I noticed some redness around his little mouth:
When I looked closer, I noticed his hands were red, swollen and covered in hives! Poor baby! I waited a few minutes to see what would happen. He was breathing fine, and wasn't fussy, happily eating the other food I gave him for breakfast (I did clean off his tray and wash his hands and face right away, though).
A few minutes later, James started crying and crying and wouldn't stop. He was scratching himself all over and was acting quite miserable. I went ahead and gave him a dose of Benadryl (thankfully we knew the dose from the dog encounter a few weeks ago, and that it was recent enough that his weight likely hasn't changed that much). I should have given it to him earlier, like as soon as I noticed the hives, because he was miserable for the next 20 minutes while we waited for the Benadryl to kick in! It's interesting, because this time the Benadryl made him very drowsy, and so I rocked him to sleep (which we never do!) and now he's upstairs snoozing. I keep checking to make sure he is breathing and has no wheezing. So far, he's fine :)
I was thinking about why he had a reaction like this the first time that he had egg - usually you don't see a reaction until the 2nd or 3rd exposure to an allergen. I realized that he got the first dose of his flu shot a few weeks ago, which has some egg protein in it from the way the vaccine is manufactured. It's important to us that James gets vaccinated, so I ended up calling and talking to a nurse at the pediatrician's office about all of this (I realize I should have called them anyways, because she mentioned that Dr. Zimmerman wants to do some allergy testing since he's had two too many reactions now in her opinion, and for my peace of mind). We go back in a week or so to get the 2nd round of the flu vaccine, and we will have to wait 30 minutes after he gets the shot to make sure he doesn't have an allergic reaction.
I have done some reading about the increase in food allergies in the past few decades, and it is really scary stuff. So far, I have tried to do everything to give James a fighting chance against food allergies. He only eats organic (and mostly local), has exposure to lots of new foods with the appropriate amount of time in between introducing new foods. Though, breast feeding is the one thing that we just couldn't do - this is still the one thing that plagues me, because using infant formula, particularly soy-based, vastly increases a child's risk for developing food allergies. But in the end, I just have to accept that there is likely a genetic predisposition involved, considering Stuart's allergies and other family members that have allergies as well.
Eating food and exploring the world shouldn't be a fearful thing, but it seems to become that when it seems that at any new exposure, my baby boy could break out in hives or later develop an anaphylactic reaction! Praying that I don't become an overly protective mama because of these things.
No comments:
Post a Comment