Our trip to the allergist

Bell and I had a not so fun, but enlightening, trip to the allergist yesterday. I decided ahead of time that I wouldn't let them do the skin test. Bella and I have Dermographism and I knew it would interfere with the results of the test. They can also test for allergies with a blood test and that is what I was going to ask for. The doctor set my mind at ease by doing a pretest on her arm. In one square, he just poked her with the needle. In the other he poked her and added histamine so it would for sure cause a reaction. She had a positive reaction to the pin prick, but not nearly as bad as the histamine. They would use the negative test to measure her reactions to the allergens. As much as I didn't want to put her through the pin prick test, I knew holding her down while they drew blood out of her arm wasn't going to be fun either. So, we went ahead with the skin test. It was awful having to hold her still while they poked her 30 times all over her back. (Jason and I have both had this done before. It's not painful it just immediately starts itching insanely bad) Then I had to distract her for 10 minutes while we waited for her to react. Keeping her from touching her back was a challenge but they had Tom and Jerry on in the lobby, so that helped. She was so happy when the nurse washed off her back and put cream on it. Turns out she is "highly allergic" as her doc put it. Mostly to dogs, cats and pigweed. She has some tree and wheat pollen (great) allergies. They ran a test for asthma which was positive, big suprise.

My poor baby girl. Even when you know that these things are going on with your child, it is still hard to see it written out in black and white. It's easier to think she might have asthma then it is to fill the script for an inhaler. But, now we know for sure so we can start treating her more aggressively and hopefully, she will start feeling better.

Anthony came down with a fever yesterday. He felt pretty bad for awhile, but he's doing lots better today. His fever is gone and he's taking a good long nap. Sweet little boy!

p.s. The picture above was taken by the nurse before she washed off Bella's back. When she had asked Bella if she ever suffered from headaches Bell's response was "only my baby brother." We all got a good laugh. So, before we left the nurse gave us this picture and told Bella to give it to her baby brother so he could see what she had to go through today.