Relief and joy, that is what I feel, the morning after my son passed an in-office food challenge. Over the course of 90 minutes, my son ate increasing amounts of cupcake made with REAL EGGS. Not only loving the homemade chocolate cupcakes, my son ate them without any reactions! He was happy, but didn’t seem to fully understand the significance of the event. At not quite four years old, that isn’t shocking. But he did register MY excitement, and had fun telling his brothers and dad and teachers and friends the news “I am not allergic to baked eggs anymore!”
Sent home from John’s Hopkins with instructions to feed him baked egg products no less than four times a week, I am now facing the need to bake and bake and bake. Good thing I love to bake 🙂 I also need to find recipes that call for more than 2 eggs, unless I want my son to be eating 4 cupcakes at a clip, we need to pack more egg into our baked goods.
If all goes well, after 2 or 3 months, we’ll progress to cooked egg – like pancakes or french toast or battered chicken. Then, maybe 9-12 months from now, we can introduce direct egg.
The other amazing news from our appointment yesterday, Dr. Wood said that he will “certainly outgrow his milk allergy.” That is HUGE. More HUGE than eggs to me, since milk has been the source of his worst reactions! In fact, his IGE levels came down on almost every food that he is allergic to. Unlike last year’s pronouncement that his nut and peanut allergies were certain to be lifelong, Dr. Wood reversed that yesterday saying that although the odds are not in our favor, he won’t rule out the possibility of growing out of those allergies as well.
It is difficult to express the kind of relief that this news brings. We have been in full swing allergy management mode for 3 years. Not a meal goes by that prevention isn’t at the forefront of our thoughts and actions. Though we have hit a stride with managing allergies, there are times when the worry is overwhelming. Food allergies are limiting, and dealing with them is all consuming, so the thought of moving past them is amazing.
Even moving past ONE allergy is amazing. One less thing to read for on labels, one less item to overwhelm caregivers, and one less food that limits his being able to eat what others are eating.
Baking with eggs is going to take some getting used to, having only been vegan baking (and loving what I made!) Now I sign off to begin researching egg heavy recipes, and to get baking.
Snowflakes In January 
Yay! My 9 year old outgrew his egg allergy a year and half ago, and it does make it much easier. Brownies often have a lot of eggs. Happy baking!
Thanks, Jennifer! We were advised to avoid brownies for the 1st 2 months since they don’t cook all the way to dry, but we are looking forward to getting to them 🙂 So far this week I’ve made delicious Challah (egg bread) which DS didn’t like (too crusty….) but our sitter made awesome (fluffy!) banana muffins which he is loving 🙂 Having to come up with all the baked goods is a nice problem to have, I must admit 🙂
I have goosebumps. This is huge! I can’t imagine managing one food allergy….much less an allergy to darn near everything. The light is surely at the end of the tunnel! Yay DS#3!!
Thanks, Christen! I do too 🙂
My daughter has an egg allergy, and her allergist wants to do a baked egg challenge. I have searched the internet and have seen several different protocols. And I’d love to know what Dr. Wood recommended for you when you baked your muffins for the challenge – did he require that you use one egg or two eggs for the challenge? And did you need to bake it for a certain amount of time at a certain temperature? You are so fortunate to have Dr. Wood as your son’s allergist. Congratulations to him and you on a successful baked egg challenge!
Thanks for stopping by! Our instructions for the baked egg challenge was to choose a recipe that called for 1-2 eggs, and then bring in the recipe and yield so they could figure out the “dose.” The goal for our baked egg challenge was to have him eat the equivalent of 1/4 of an egg over a couple of hours. For our recipe, that meant 4 cupcakes. They began with a tiny crumb and worked up to a final serving of almost a whole cupcake. The whole challenge took 8 servings of various sizes to get to the 1/4 egg. They asked us to bring in 6 or 8 cupcakes just in case there was spillage.
Now we are to continue with the 1/4 egg dose as often as possible to desensitize him to egg. The problem we are having is that the more concentrated the baked egg (meaning a recipe where the 1/4 egg is in a single muffin) he won’t eat. So we’re having to feed him a ton of baked goods to get the 1/4 egg in him…. I need to reach out to Dr. Wood’s office to see if this is meaningful or not.
When is your challenge? Will it be in-office or at home? Good luck, and let me know how it goes!
Jennifer
Congrats! We go to Dr Wood as well for our son, who is 2 1/2. He were able to do our egg food challenge at home with Dr Wood’s blessing after our last blood test (his level’s were low), and I was thrilled to cross eggs off the list by working through Dr Wood’s process (items get continually more moist until you try eggs directly).
Try this pancake recipe (no milk): http://www.buzzle.com/articles/easy-pancake-recipe-without-milk.html
We sometimes add an extra egg too, and the whole family enjoys them. I make a few extra on the weekends for an easy breakfast during the week, which continues to get eggs in his diet.
We have a baked milk food challenge scheduled for Feb 2013 (everything in that office is booked so far out — fingers crossed that the blood work comes back looking good and we can actually do the challenge!) I would love to cross milk off the list. And I keep my fingers crossed on peanuts – though I’m less hopeful.
One food at a time 🙂
Hi Jules, thanks for stopping by, and thanks for the pancake recipe. We aren’t ready to go to cooked egg yet — DS is still not liking the baked egg goods most of the time, and I’m fearing that he isn’t being desensitized enough. But I’ll keep baking and keep trying! For some reason he LOVES mini-banana muffins, but of course he needs to eat 6 of them to get his dose, and by that point, he isn’t hungry for anything else! Let me know how your baked milk challenge goes! Your post reminds me that I need to book his next visit!
Don’t know if you are still available for comment. I am in the same boat with my son trying to find foods for him to eat without bulking up! I need to increase his tolerance. I’ve made homemade pasta, bread with eggs, cupcakes… Any other ideas would be great!
Hi! Sorry for the delay in responding! If you haven’t already, try pancakes and waffles (super easy!), and breaded chicken made with an egg wash to bind the breadcrumbs. Depending on tolerance level, those are considered “cooked” and not “baked.” Also, more direct egg includes puddings, pie filling and souffles. With my son, we took a whole year to go from baked egg to direct egg. He still does not like it, but can eat a couple of bites of scrambled eggs with no problems. Good luck! Sounds like you are making all kinds of great things 🙂
Thanks so much for the reply. He is doing great now. We are eating breakfast sandwiches and loving it. Best wishes to you!
Hello! We’re on this journey and I am looking for baked egg recipes that call for either 1/3 or 1/2 baked egg per serving… my son has been eating brownies with 1/4 egg baked/per serving and has been doing beautifully. It is very difficult to find a recipe with that much egg per serving. I know technically he could eat 2 servings but he is not a huge eater and gets full pretty quickly… He is almost 12 years old, about 80lbs, pretty thin kiddo. Hope you are all doing well!
Hi Leslie,
Thanks for stopping by my blog! It has been a while since we were in your boat – but I recall making breads and muffins that were more egg-dense. We have a bread maker, and Challah bread requires a lot of eggs. That could get you to your dose with only a small piece of bread. We did this a lot for our dosing because otherwise my kid was living on cupcakes (and sugar!) I totally get the small kiddo, doesn’t eat a lot issue! My son is now 10 1/2 and maybe 54 pounds. I hear this is common for our food allergic kids. Good luck with your desensitization and please share if you find other great recipe ideas.
Jennifer