Allergy Testing :

Before: I am feeling really nervous, I really don't know what to expect. It seems so long ago that he had reaction I almost feel like I made it up. I am scared that he is allergic to other things, nuts in itself is a bit of a pain. I'm hopeful that I will get good advice on how to manage a reaction. I just feel really nervous. They don't really give you much of an idea as to what is going to happen.

During : I got there and handed in my appointment card and sat and waited. Because the appointment was a the children's unit there was lots of toys which was handy. We went and got Tom weighed and measured, not really sure why but it was handy as I hadn't done it in a while! Next up we met with the doctor, we discussed Toms allergic reaction to peanut butter and our family history with allergies. We decided on what to test him for based on what he has been exposed to, so he was tested for peanuts, hazelnuts (to check if it's an all nut allergy or peanut and not tree nut allergy), cat hair, another animal hair (but I really can't remember what!), eggs and there was also a positive and negative swatch to ensure he was reacting in the expected way. 

N.B. I was asked if Tom had taken any antihistamine prior to the testing as I'm assuming it might sway the results, so avoid if possible.

The test was done by having numbers listed on his arm, next to each number was a blob of the allergin which was followed by a shallow prick to introduce the allergin to the skin and cause a reaction. We then waited for 10 minutes.

This was as the hive reactions started coming up. As you can see Tom had a few reactions. We went back in and the nurse drew circles around the hives and used a transfer tape to magically transfer the circles onto paper. They was measured and taken to the Dr to have a look-see (back to the waiting room). We went back into the Drs and discussed our results. It is confirmed that Tom has a peanut allergy but not to hazelnuts! This is really good news as it means Tom can eat some nuts (and Nutella!), Tom is also mildly allergic to cats (we have a black cat called Hillary), the doctor said that if Hillary isn't affecting his eczema then not to worry (phew). 

The other big reaction was eggs. I had intentionally not introduced eggs into his diet as my gut was telling me to hold out until his allergy testing, after the peanut reaction just in case. The Dr has advised us to research if Tom has eaten things with egg in previously in which case he might tolerate baked egg. If this is the case then we could do the baked egg test, which is feeding him a bit of cake made with 1/4 ratio of egg that you would usually use. I'm going to have to check if Tom has eaten baked egg before as the Dr explained that if he hadn't then we defiantly shouldn't attempt it. 

I was given some information from the Allergy UK website and it was agreed for us to return in 4-6 months.

After : I feel a bit relived that it's done and I now know where I stand. Equally I'm really disappointed about the egg allergy as my dad (Nandad to Tom!) has made a special egg dish for both my neices and Tom won't be able to have it, but c'est la vie. I think I will need more time to digest (boom! Pun intended!)

I hope this has been helpful! Have you had any experiences with allergies?