Great Good Fortune

We began re-introducing egg into our kids’ diet this past week. Charming Boy quickly sprouted a skin rash on his face and the backs of his upper arms. This is the reaction he formerly showed for the casein (dairy) allergy.

Very upsetting. He has professed his undying love of eggs, and will be crushed if we have to take him off of them again. This was not something I expected, and I need to figure out what we are going to do now.

One idea is to see if I can find a pediatric acupuncturist nearby, one that will use the little beads under a band-aid instead of needles. A couple of friends have had very good results with this type of treatment.

We are also going to ask the ped about getting a traditional skin allergy test for both kids, though from what I’ve read, the false-positive rate is about 50%, whereas a negative reading is about 95% certain. The serum test from last fall that C.B. had the highest possible IgE reaction to eggs and the protein in all glutenous grains, followed by high reactions to casein. From what I understand, IgG is more of an anaphylactic, life-threatening reaction, while the IgE is more of a skin/lungs/digestive tract reaction; it is therefore not much of a coincidence that C.B. tends to have skin rashes, croup, loose stools, and had reflux (digestive tract issues) his first year of life.

I had hoped that 10 months on a completely egg-free, casein-free diet would have allowed his body to heal enough to tolerate these foods again.

I had really been hoping to have our family back on a normal diet by early summer. My mind is overflowing with expletives!! Time to re-evaluate.

WWYD? If the skin reaction was the only obvious sign to an allergen, would you pull it out of the diet again? Is the obvious culinary pleasure he showed with the food worth the skin rash? I can’t believe I’m seriously on the fence about this.