Allergy Testing : Follow Up Appointment

Tom had his follow up allergy appointment today, to see how we are managing and to decide on a plan of action. 

When we arrived they asked us to weigh Tom but it was agreed that this was not neccasary as he was weighed at the start of the week. 

The appointment itself was really short, less than ten minutes, as our situation is pretty straightforward. We hadn't completed the baked egg challenge as Tom had reacted to a chicken nugget that had been breaded with egg, so we agreed that Tom would avoid all eggs. We will also continue to avoid all peanuts and strawberry.

As Tom is able to have Nutella the doctor said that he may grow out of his allergies which I was really pleased with as the dietician had indicated otherwise. And that was that really. Tom will be retested when he is 4 to see if he has grown out of his allergies but until then it's pretty much Keep Calm and Carry On!

The most pointless meeting in the world ...

When Tom had his allergy appointment the paediatrician referred him to the dietician aswell, I didn't question it as he is the doctor. I had forgotten all about it until on Saturday I received a letter for the upcoming Friday. I didn't really know what I would get out of it but we had an appointment and so we would duely attend.

It had been a few months since Tom had his allergy testing and he had only had 3 reactions in that time so we have a pretty good handle on managing them. Prior to the appointment Tom was weighed and measured, FYI he is in the 99th percentile!

We then had our appointment. The dietician reported that she was happy with his size as it's clearly inherited - Mr B is 6"5. We had been asked to keep a food diary for 3 days, so we looked at that and she was happy with the variety and that what he eats shouldn't upset his  allergies. Then she gave me some fact sheets from the Allergy UK website. I had already seen them as I did a lot of research when Tom was diagnosed. And so that was pretty much it. The gist of it was, keep doing what you are doing, it's obviously working. 

So yeah, that was pretty bloody pointless. I'm not about to start slagging off someone's profession but I don't think that she really brought much to the table in our situation. I guess it would have been much better if it was closer to when he was diagnosed but at this point the advice "read the packaging" is a bit of a given. 

So there it is. I hope this post was helpful in some way! 

Shopping List :

Tommee Tippee straw cups

I have a few friends with children that struggled to transition into straw cups and so when the time came I wasn't expecting Tom to take to it well. We have always used Tommee Tippee bottles and sippy cups and Tom seems to work well with the shape and size, so I decided to stick with what we know (plus it was on offer for £3 at Mothercare!)

Tom took to it straight away, the straw seems really easy to use, with the water flowing up with minimal sucking required. My friends with children have sampled it (as they do) and they too found it really easy to use. I would really recommend it as a first sippy cup, the only downside is I just can seem to find them in shops, they always seems to be sold out, I guess that is an indicator that other people love it too!

Trousers

Tom seems to be a bit of a funny shape, he is tall for his age so his T-shirts are big but his trousers rarely fit well! Tom grows out of trousers faster than any other item of clothing so I am always on the hunt for more!

In the meantime I seem to be dressing Tom in lots of rompers as his room up top gives him more space down below!

Pyjamas

After his bath Tom gets really eager for boobie feed and so it's a bit of a pain in the arse to get dressed, anything with poppers takes forever and so we have moved from baby grows to pyjamas. 

Now it's just trying to find good ones! We have some cute ones from M&S which have a good fit, and make Tom look like a little gentleman. His Matalan ones are also nice and reasonably priced, not as cute as M&S but in price vs cute, price often wins, hence no baby gap pyjamas in the running!

Aveeno

Tom suffers with eczema on his face and it's starting to travel around his body (joy!). We use a few different products but I like aveeno for ease of use due to the pump bottle. I'm always on the hunt to see if it's on offer as it's not particularly cheap and for a product that's used daily it's worth holding out.

What's on your shopping list this week?