Milk Food Challenge

Blake and I went to a Food Allergy Fair a couple months ago and there was an allergy doctor there who was available for questions. In a short couple minutes, the doctor told me a bunch of new things/information. Stuff that I hadn't heard from anything I'd read or what our current allergy doctor had told us. Even saying that blood tests for soy are very inaccurate for kids Blake's age. And something about it was possible that Blake's intitial soy reaction wasn't an allergic reation, but could have been Food Protein Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome (FPIES) or a combination of the two.

Interested to find out more, I made an appointment with Dr. Stillerman. He did a skin test, which was torture for poor Blake. He bawled for the whole 30 minutes after the pokes that we had to sit in the office and wait to see if the skin reacted. (And he still talks about how he didn't like it and he cried, which is probably what set us up for how Blake reacted at the Food Challenge....read on.) Good news is that Blake had no reaction to anything that they tested - milk, egg, soy or peanut. So, the next step is a supervised Oral Food Challenge. Normally there is a waiting list, but the doctor went out of his way to schedule a special appointment (and a whole lot of coordinating with Children's Hospital) in the few remaining days left of the year so we wouldn't have to pay out of pocket when our our high deductible insurance starts over again.

So, the day of the challenge, we got a sitter for Campbell, which was a feat in and of itself. Left for Children's Hospital at 7:00 am. Poor Blake was freaked out from the moment we got into the room. He cried when the nurse tried to take his vitals. Freaking out when she was just trying to look at his legs.

The challenge works like this: start with just a few drops of the milk and then watch for a reaction for 15 minutes. If no reaction, gradually increase the dose, watch, repeat. Until you've worked up to ingesting 3 ounces. We tried everything to get Blake to drink the first drops of milk. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G......hiding it in applesauce, playing games with it, giving chocolate milk, hiding in pudding, hiding it in rice milk, letting him use fun straws, bribes, bribes, bribes, bribes, and more bribes, holding him down and trying to force it in. Nothing worked. He was flat out refusing everything. Spitting out the milk. Kicking everyone in sight including the nurse and doctor. It was horrible. I was ever so embarrassing. To say I was sweating would be a gross understatement. I was trying to remain calm on the exterior so not freak out Blake any more than he already was. We would take a break from it all and read to him, watch TV, play games, and he'd be fine, but the second anything came close to his mouth he'd go right back into being super uncooperative.

Around the time the appointment was supposed to be over, we had managed to only get him to take 2 tiny doses. Everyone had gone out of their way to make this appointment happen. Gabe had taken a day of vacation. (Thank goodness he was there, of course, for the emotional support, but for the physical strength. Even Gabe was even having a hard time holding Blake down when we finally just had to try to force milk down Blake's throat.) I was mortified that it wasn't working out.

Finally, the doctor said that if we could get him to just drink the whole 3 ounces, they would watch him an hour and then if no reaction, we could go home. Upping our efforts to try to get him to drink the milk. If you do this, we can go home!  Using all the ECFE approved tricks I could think of. Bribes, bribes, and more bribes. Then resorting to threats of taking away his new Christmas toys if he didn't drink it. Didn't work. In total desperation I threatened to leave him there if he wouldn't drink it. He called my bluff. It was parenting at it's worst. I thought we were just going to have to go home and call the whole ordeal a failure.

Then when he was blowing bubbles in the chocolate milk (with a ton of added sugar to make it taste even better) and it was spraying everywhere, and I was trying to stop him from making a huge mess, I had the idea to tell him to suck up the bubbles. IT WORKED. He drank it so fast. Then he jumped off Gabe's lap and marched out to the nurses station and asked for more milk. The nurses thought it was hilarious. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or be mad. Gabe & I were completely mentally and physically exhausted.

We waited for an hour, no reaction! Then the doctor said since he wanted more milk, that we could do another 3 ounces if we wanted. Again, Blake loved sucking up the bubbles.

In the end, Blake had a whole 6 ounces of milk and no reaction. Nothing. Not even a messy diaper that day.

The nurse gave Blake a Cookie Monster stuffed animal for being a good patient. Not sure if she had the best judgement. Although after Blake sucked down all that milk he did turn into a good patient. He was back to his sweet self - smiling at the nurse as she took his vitals and laughing.

In the middle of the food challenge. Trying to distract Blake.

Blake being able to have dairy is a game changer. It opens up so many options for food. You don't realize how many things have cheese, milk, yogurt, whey, butter in them until you have to completely avoid it. There's like 30 ways it can be listed in a food's ingredients. Although I'd done a good job figuing out foods he could eat, this is awesome that we have one less thing to worry about.

The doctor said we could do an egg challenge next, but he still recommends avoiding soy and peanut (and all tree nuts). We all need some time to recover before we even think about doing another one of those. I'm just really happy that he can have milk. And Blake keeps saying, 'the doctor said I can have cheese!' or 'did the doctor say I can have this?' when I'm giving him a food to eat that he had to avoid before.

And one little vent....I'm so glad we went to this new doctor! Our old doctor never mentioned a skin test, much less a food challenge. I'm guessing it would have been years of avoiding milk when it's not even necessary! Geez!

Blake saying 'cheese' while eating cheese. He's super excited to have cheese sandwiches just like his big sister.