Allergies

Well, I took Ben for his allergy testing this morning...It went ok. They did a scratch test on his back, which is just little pricks of the stuff on his back. He kinda fussed and squirmed, but never went just bonkers. After the nurse was done putting it all on his back they gave it 15 minutes or so and thats when he started getting uncomfortable, he wanted to scratch it, but we kept him as preoccupied as possible. The results are pretty overwhelming...but I think i was expecting it because it didnt surprise me too much. They rate stuff by 4 being the highest and adding a + or multiple + depending on how allergic he is, so here are the results...

4+'s - peanuts (already knew)
wheat (i was highly suspecting this)
walnuts
corn (he said this is a pretty common allergy)
eggs (thought he had outgrown that, guess not)
yeast (there goes all his baked goods)
3+s - soy(hah! i was kinda shocked! and he didnt have a milk allergy)
mold
most grasses, bermuda being the worst and st. augustine being the best
trees (olive trees (which give off the most pollen in the desert) ash tree (which is common
down here) and mulberry (which we have in our yard))

So, those were the biggies. And big they are. But i had already started leaning towards the idea of him having a wheat allergy. He said it would be hard to change his diet, but he did give us a plan. He told me to put ben on zyrtec every day. Its like 1/2 tsp a day, mainly to help with the outdoor allergies but also to see if that alone would help him with the food allergies too without having to alter his diet to significantly. So, Im supposed to do that for 2 weeks and if thats not making a big change, then alter the diet (no baked goods, nothing with corn, which includes corn syrup, etc.) and then 2 weeks after that he said we could introduce 1 new thing and see how much of an impact it has on him and go from there. So im not totally overwhelmed. We have other options besides bread (rice, potatoes...) and taking that nasty corn syrup out of his diet sure wont hurt and would be a good change for all of us. He enjoys his fruits and vegies thank goodness and then he can eat meats.

The other good news is that he will almost certainly outgrow these, with the exception of peanuts. He said we will probably see a big difference by the time hes 7 and all the way till hes probably 17 or so. So there is hope!

That's my news from the doctor. I'm going to make a shopping trip this evening by myself so i can read ingredients (im going to start taking as much wheat, yeast, and corn products out now). I also found out that some girls from church are going to throw me a baby shower on the 16th! Im excited! But one of them told me i needed to go register for more stuff, so im gonna go to Burlington Baby Depot and Macys to register for more fun stuff, so i guess that offsets the label reading at the grocery store. I will keep you updated on our progress with all of this.