Cashew Allergy

I realize it's been a while since I've posted an update on Andrew and the hives. So, without further ado...

In early December, we took Andrew to a pediatric allergist after he suffered from hives for about 10 weeks. She was so great and spent so much time taking a full history and looking at Andrew. Dr. Oglivie-McDaniel said she thought Andrew was reacting to something, probably food related, but that the cause of hives was the most difficult allergy to diagnose. Not what I was hoping to hear! I had been keeping a food diary and had sort of pin-pointed food dyes as a source of the hives. She agreed that was a possibility. Unfortunately, there isn't an allergy test for food dyes, so it is still a theory. And in case I'm right, we are trying to avoid food and beverages with dyes.

But there are many other foods they can test for. They took five viles of my baby's blood and ran countless tests for all sorts of things, including common food allergies such as wheat, dairy, eggs, nuts, etc. He was so brave while they took vile after vile and I helped hold him down. I'm not sure who suffered more.

Anyway, 2 weeks later, we found out that Andrew is allergic to cashews. (Andrew had a couple of cashews when he was around 20 months old and threw-up about a half hour later and then broke out in hives. We have not given him any since this reaction so we didn't know if it was a fluke or an allergic reaction.) So this diagnosis wasn't a complete surprise to us. And, now we get to carry an Epi-pen, in case of accidental ingestion of cashews and a serious reaction. FUN.

Fortunately, Andrew doesn't like any nuts or peanuts, so it's pretty easy for us to avoid cashews. But because of his age and the fact that we don't know how he is going to react, we are also avoiding all tree nuts and products made in factories or plants that process tree nuts. This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. For example, some of Andrew's favorite dried fruit snacks are made and packaged in factories that also process tree nuts. WHY do they do this to parents? So, I've started buying some organic snacks. They are more expensive, but come with less worry!

And Andrew, he doesn't seem to know anything is different about his life. He is on a daily dose of Zyrtec and that keeps the hives at bay. We saw the allergy doctor a week ago and she said we could try to stop taking the Zyrtec. We tried once and he was so miserable the next day, that we've been afraid to stop giving it since. So, we're back to square one for now. The good news is that we have the hives under control and for the most part, every day is more normal. I'll take normal via medication vs. crazy without for now.