Pass and Fail

 I have been trying to be more regular in posting, but realize its been a couple of months since I last posted. 

August was a crazy, busy month. It started off well enough with Meet the Teacher and back to school, My Mom was back home after her foot injury, with her boot, and was recovering well. I had a nice birthday celebration - dinner with Beanie and my Mom.

The next day, Beanie and I were relaxing after dinner. There was heavy rain storm and we were cozy, playing board games, when my Mom calls, panicked because her basement apartment was flooding with rain water. She lives with my sister, who was away on vacation. As soon as the storm abated, we rushed to her place and spent the next few hours getting rid of the water off her wood floors. She came to our place and next few days were spent getting all that sorted whilst my sister returned. My Mom stayed with me for almost a month. 

In mid- August, I had to go for Jury Duty. Luckily, my Mom was already staying with me, so she could be home it while I went back and forth to court. Thankfully, I did not get picked and only spent 2 days in the Jury Selection room. I was interviewed for a case, but thankfully none of our group were picked.

At the end of August, I took Beanie for an Oral Food Challenge (OFC). She has allergy to Tree Nuts. We have started with new Dr and he decided based on her bloodwork to do Food Challenges where they give you the allergen to see if you are really allergic or not. While skin and blood tests are okay, the gold standard is the OFC.

On Aug 31, Beanie did an OFC for almond and hazelnuts. By the and of the 4 hrs, she ate the equivalent of 6 almonds and 6 hazelnuts - and she Passed! No reaction which meant she can now eat almonds and hazelnuts with no issues. I was so happy since almond milk and almond flour are so commonly found in food items. Beanie was thrilled to finally try Nutella!!! She did not like almond milk, but I bough Almond butter so she can include it regularly in her diet now.

A week or so later, I  did home challenge for Coconut. Coconut is not really a nut, but Beanie had never eaten it so we tried and she did great. Hello Almond Joy!!

Then last weekend I tried shrimp. Again she had never eaten it so I had no idea if she is/is not allergic. But she ate it slowly over a hour and consumed a full shrimp. She did not like the taste or texture, but we know she is not allergy to shellfish.

Then this past Wed. we did another OCF at the clinic for almonds and pecans.  Beanie's blood and skin showed mild reactivity to walnut, none to pecan, but they are sister nuts and were tested together. Unfortunately, she Failed. 

After eating about 1950mg (3/4 teaspoon) of the nuts her eyes got itchy and red/puffy. This is exactly what had happened to her at 3 years old when she ate a teaspoon of walnuts and we determined she had a nut allergy.  Back then, prior to that one incident, I had given her tiny pieces of walnut and she had not reacted, which is in line with what we saw last week. Small portions she did fine, but once the portions started getting bigger the reaction set in.  The good news is that since the reaction occurs after a substantial exposure, we do need to worry so much about cross contamination with walnut or if she takes an accidental bite of something with walnut in it. 

I am a bit bummed, I was praying she would have passed it. 

I still think she is not allergic to pecans since she did not have a reaction to the skin test. and blood test shows no sensitivity either, but given its a sister nut to walnut, we will avoid it too.

The next step is to do Oral Immunotherapy for Cashew and Pistachio for which her numbers show high level of allergy, and walnut/pecan will be added too. I plan to do that in Spring after all the cold/flu season is done.