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 