A nutty tale

When John-Paul was about 13 months old, I gave him some peanut butter on bread, and put him down for a nap. When he awoke, he had hives on his body and swollen knees. We brought him to the emergency room where they gave him a shot of Benedryl and the swelling and hives went away. They suggested we get him tested for a peanut allergy.

I made the appointment, and we had him tested for peanuts and penicillin since he had just finished a dose of that for an ear infection. The test came back showing a peanut allergy. The allergist told us to keep him away from all nuts because most people with a peanut allergy have a nut allergy as well. You can read more about peanut allergies here.

So for the past 5 years, we have been extremely careful about keeping John-Paul away from nuts. However, lately I have just had this mother's intuition that he has outgrown the allergy (even though statistics show only about 20% of kids do). So when he went to his 6-year-old checkup, I asked for him to be retested.

We went to the allergist yesterday, and he tested John-Paul for peanuts and a variety of other nuts. The skin test was negative!! Meaning that he did not have an allergic reaction to the nuts or peanuts. The doctor said that because peanut allergies are so dangerous, he wants to confirm the negative result with a blood test.

So the next step is to get his blood drawn, have that tested, and if that comes back negative as well, we can bring him back to the allergist's office and give him some peanut butter to see how he reacts. If his system can handle a little, we will give him more and monitor him for about an hour.

It's a long process, but definitely worth it. Hopefully all will go smoothly, and John-Paul will be eating nuts and PB & J sandwiches in no time!