So, I can't remember if I mentioned it here or not but over the past couple of months Ruby has had two instant reactions to peanuts/peanut butter. I had been purposely keeping her from anything with peanuts due to her eczema and knowing that food allergies sometimes go hand in hand with eczema. I just didn't want to chance it. Her reactions weren't bad but she broke out in hives both times and both times Benadryl did the trick. She also had an episode where a strange dog licked her on the face and within minutes she had hives/red welts covering her face and her eye was beginning to swell shut. Benadryl did the trick then too (I had also called the pediatrician's office so I knew what else to look for in case the Benadryl wasn't going to work).
My "Mommy's Intuition" has been working overtime lately and although the pediatrician recommended waiting until she was 2 to do any allergy testing I figured I'd just do it anyway...normally I don't mind surprises but being surprised by another food reaction is not something I want to deal with again.
I took Ruby to a great pediatric allergist this morning. Dr. B is the ONLY name that I kept hearing while talking to various parents about it. The skin testing was performed and she came back positive for peanuts AND dogs! Eggs are also a possibility because she HAS had a reaction to eating scrambled eggs in the past. She can eat things with eggs in them (i.e. cake) and doesn't break out in hives but the Dr. pointed out that if her eczema were to flair up within 24 hours then that could also indicate a food allergy. We have been working overtime the past week or so in getting her eczema under control because she had some bad areas so I don't know if it was related to something she ate or not.
We have to go in for blood work tomorrow and we'll go back to the Dr. on the 29th to get the results and get more education on peanut allergies. The Dr. also said that since she has eczema AND food allergies that her chance of developing asthma at some point is about 50%. I'm trying very hard right now to process all this. For the time being the Dr. feels it would be best to have an epi-pen handy so I have the prescription for that I have to get filled. He also suggested using Zyrtec instead of Benadryl only because it lasts longer. He said it would be a good idea to give her a dose about 30 minutes before we go to visit someone with a dog (i.e. my parents and both of my sisters!) We are also avoiding eggs whenever possible (cake or waffles would be okay). The Dr. said we would do an egg challenge down the road to see if she outgrows her reaction to that.
So, THAT was my morning. My incredibly TOTALLY awesome mom kept Max, Abby, and Lucy at work with her this morning because I had heard it might get rough during the testing. So after I picked them up and we stopped off to say hi to daddy at work we came home to a HOT HOUSE!
Our downstairs a/c unit is apparently on strike! While the heat index outside is sitting at about 100 our downstairs is currently a toasty 83 ;p I tried what I knew to do and now I am waiting on the a/c guy to come. I called at 2:20 and the lady said he could be here between 1 and 5...then she laughed and said, "Well, he obviously won't be there at 1"...glad she had a sense of humor...she's probably sitting in a nice air conditioned office :)
On top of that my husband is doing battle with the company that "fixed" our foundation last summer. We noticed the cracks in our garage wall were getting bigger so we put in a call. The guy "E" who originally came out and "sold" the product came out and took pictures and said the crew would call to come out and fix it. Call never came and so after I had called for 2 months the crew came out and apparently one of the piers was installed in the wrong place and they would have to call "E" and he would call me to tell me what would have to be done. 2 weeks went by without a call from "E" (are you noticing a pattern here?) John finally got ticked off enough to step in and raise some cane :)
After several phone calls from John and more from an employee at the company calling on "E"'s behalf, "E" finally showed up on our doorstep yesterday. He said the crew had put the pier in the wrong place, not where he told them to put it. I guess he forgot he had given me a copy of his drawing which indicated where the piers were to be placed...they put it exactly where he marked it to go...the WRONG spot! "E" told me the crew was in the area at another site and that he would have them come over as soon as they were done and take care of it. Huh...they didn't show up. Either he "forgot" to tell them or he has no right to alter their schedule...no one called or anything. I would have thought after all of this that "E" would have called me (as good customer service) to make sure the crew had shown up...nope.
John has had enough and when we stopped by his office today to say hi he was on the phone with the president of the company (who had no idea any of this was going on) and demanded some answers. We had no problems getting them out here last summer when they were getting $1600.00 out of us...now that they have to correct a mistake THEY made we are getting the run around.
Okay, sorry...had to vent and get that out. WOW, okay, I was going to take some pics to go with this post and my camera battery died...I'm just gonna crawl in my bed and pull the covers over my head! I'll do a picture post soon!
1 comment:
Poor Ruby. But it's good that you're getting some answers. Buddy is allergic to peanuts, nuts, egss (and a multitude of other things). He has eczema AND asthma as well. So basically, if you need any info, let me know. LOL We've been through it all.
That sucks about the foundation at your house. Hopefully John's call will get them moving!
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