(no subject)
B has been agitating for getting a RAST test for months. It's an allergy test, much more accurate than a scratch test but still not conclusive. We've been getting one for him roughly once a year in the fall since he was a toddler. The way it works is that if your numbers go down enough on an allergen, you do what they call a food challenge. We go to the allergist's office and he eats bits of the food over a two hour period while they watch him to make sure he doesn't go into anaphalactic shock.
That's only happened twice, a few years ago, with egg. He was still allergic to it, though now he eats baked things with a little egg in them. The first time was with soy when he was a toddler.
During the school year last year, he just started eating sesame and he was fine. Now, though, he wants the reinforcement of the RAST test results before he tries something else.
He came home today with a cotton ball taped to the inside of his arm from the blood draw. "I feel really good about this," he said. He was very excited. "I think I'm going to eat some new food."
I used to feel like that every fall when he took the test. I felt like that when we went to the egg challenge, too. Today I wanted to caution him, point out that we have no indication that he has outgrown anything, because I didn't want him to be disappointed, over and over, the way that I was for all of those years and all of those RAST tests. I didn't say anything, because he's not going to absorb that message from me. He just has to be disappointed.
That's only happened twice, a few years ago, with egg. He was still allergic to it, though now he eats baked things with a little egg in them. The first time was with soy when he was a toddler.
During the school year last year, he just started eating sesame and he was fine. Now, though, he wants the reinforcement of the RAST test results before he tries something else.
He came home today with a cotton ball taped to the inside of his arm from the blood draw. "I feel really good about this," he said. He was very excited. "I think I'm going to eat some new food."
I used to feel like that every fall when he took the test. I felt like that when we went to the egg challenge, too. Today I wanted to caution him, point out that we have no indication that he has outgrown anything, because I didn't want him to be disappointed, over and over, the way that I was for all of those years and all of those RAST tests. I didn't say anything, because he's not going to absorb that message from me. He just has to be disappointed.