Food Challenge Take 3

The allergist office: home of the best (so loud your parents won't let you have them at home) toys in town.

We just had our THIRD food challenge! And it went well! Bringing our record against food challenge anaphylaxis to a solid 2-1. The first two food challenges my kid had when she was around one year old. Now that she’s an official two year old, I knew this food challenge was going to be a little different.

She has a lot more opinions about food now.

The magic time when I could feed her vegetables and she would eat them without question has passed. She’s still not a picky eater (the title of pickiest of all eaters will forever be bestowed upon her older brother), but she definitely lets us know when she doesn’t like something. So, we followed the instructions of bringing her to the office a little hungry – this way she had a better chance of actually eating the cashew butter.

She can actually tell us how she feels since upset stomach can be an early sign of a reaction.

Last time, when she started to act differently- more fussy, refusing to eat more baked muffin- we just guessed that maybe she was having a reaction. But we had to wait for her to show other signs (hives) to know for sure what was going on. Now she can actually talk to us! (Unfortunately, when she doesn’t like the taste of something at home, she says “don’t feel good.” That’s a pretty unfortunate wording for somebody with food allergies…)

Some things don’t change with trips to the allergist, though.

We were still there for 4 hours.

You got to pack a lunch and a snack (for you AND whoever is getting tested), books, toys, a clown, and if you can find a babysitter that would be great. About 3 hours in my kid tried to walk out of the room saying, “All done. Go home.”

They still let her watch TV.

It seemed crazy to put on TV on the computer when she was a baby, but now she was super excited about picking a show to watch!

They still gave her toys that light up and make noise.

This time it was a toy smart watch (she was not impressed. Not nearly as much fun as the real thing) and duck that rolled around quacking and singing. Her allergist said some kids love the duck so much their parents immediately buy one on Amazon. You know what I don’t want in my house? A duck that sings 2 songs over and over again at the press of a button. No matter how much my kid loves it.

She got a new stuffed animal AND stickers to go home with

They always have the best prizes at the allergist office. I guess the risk of anaphylaxis leads to a better selection. High risk, high reward.

 

Strutting out with a new bear and covered in stickers, finally leaving.

But, by far, the biggest thing I learned about food challenges was to read the nutrition label and not just the ingredient list. The cashew butter I picked out was the cheapest kind I could find at the store that wasn’t processed right next to peanuts. However, the first thing my kid’s allergist did was check the nutrition label for how much protein was in each serving. She needed to decide how much cashew butter my kid needed to eat to get a full exposure. The allergist was shocked at how little protein was in each tablespoon. It turns out they thinned the whole batch out with vegetable oil, so it was runny AND contained very limited actual cashew protein. This prompted her allergist to talk about how some parents bring in homemade nut butters and how good they are. OK. I hear you. Let's add making my own nut butters to my to do list next week.

Homemade or not, next food challenge I’m going to make sure I get something with a bunch of potentially deadly protein. Nothing says food challenge like signing a form saying you are okay that your kid might get sick!