Allergy follow-up

Landon had a follow up appointment with his allergist today. He was suppose to have skin testing done again to see whether or not he is still allergic to milk. We know without a doubt that he still is so they skipped the skin testing. A few months ago Landon reached on top of the table and pulled down a glass of milk and it splattered all over him. He immediately broke out into a rash all over his body. He also touched an ice cream container and then rubbed his eye and his eye swelled up so we know that he still has a severe milk allergy. They won't re-test him again for another year. By testing him for the milk allergy, it will require him to be exposed to milk. They are not wanting to expose him to milk for the testing so they skipped the test all together since we know that he is in fact still allergic. We were given strict orders to avoid milk completely. They are hoping that by not having any milk whatsoever in Landon's diet that his body will eventually forget what milk is and he will grow out his allergy. The goal is for Landon to outgrow his allergy by the age of 5. If it happens sooner then great, but we are at least hoping that he will outgrow before starting school. If he eats anything at all with milk in it, including things that don't give him an allergic reaction, then we are just prolonging the process of his milk allergy and causing it to potentially be around for forever. That means no more Chick-fil-a nuggets or pancakes from IHOPS and Denny's even though they have never caused a noticeable reaction in Landon. We learned that just because we can't see a reaction does not mean that it is not causing a problem. I have tried stressing that to others and have failed miserably at doing so so I was glad that the allergist re-affirmed it today. It's always nice knowing that my "overprotective" nature is for a reason. I'm not being overprotective. There are just some things that Mom's know instinctively. It comes with the territory of giving birth. At least we were re-assured that there is hope of him eventually outgrowing his milk allergy.

I also brought up my concern of Landon having an allergy to vanilla. He bit into a bottle of vanilla extract and had a horrible reaction all over his face. He also had the worst case of diarrhea that I had ever seen when he ate some vanilla wafers. I'm talking about him going through over 50 diapers in one weekend just from eating a couple handfuls of vanilla wafers. He has also had a terrible rash in his diaper area for a while now so I cut out his vanilla soy milk and the rash is slowly clearing up. The allergist told me that a vanilla allergy is extremely rare. So rare that they have never had a single case in over 20 years. They did not rule out the potential of a vanilla allergy, but since an actual allergy is so rare they think that Landon just may have an intolerance to vanilla. We are to avoid vanilla as well. That may be harder than avoiding milk. Landon loves his vanilla soy milk. Plain and chocolate soy milk don't taste as good as the vanilla soy milk. It may be hard getting him to drink soy milk now. We shall see how it goes.

After his appointment Kevin and I went driving to see if we could find a local park. I packed a picnic lunch so that we could enjoy some outside time. Plus a picnic lunch is so much better then eating in a restaurant. At least we think so. We were driving to a park that Kevin had saved on his GPS when we drove pass "Landon Park." Naturally we had to stop there. It was really windy and cold since it was right next to the river, but we had a nice afternoon. Landon and I enjoyed tuna fish much to Kevin's chagrin and he had a PB&J. I love days at the park, especially when we are at Landon Park! Being as cheesy as I am we had to take pictures of Landon in front of the Landon Park sign.