A trip to the doctor with William

We have discovered why William has been sleeping so poorly the last few nights.  He has had a cold/cough and has woken himself up several times coughing at night, but then he started waking up just crying.  Two nights ago, Laney actually slept 8 hours in a row (midnight to 8am) but during that time, William woke up twice.  I just can't catch a break.  So after this went on for three nights, I took William in to the pediatrician.  It turns out he has strep throat.  That's a new one for us - he's had lots of ear infections, but not strep throat yet.  Currently I have us quarantined until the antibiotic has a chance to kick in.  Luckily the weather was so nice this weekend that it didn't matter so much that we couldn't go anywhere but the backyard.  Here's hoping the antibiotic gets him sleeping better too.

William has been, as our health insurance dubs it, a "high utilizer of healthcare services."  He has had eczema since he was a little baby.  He been on antibiotics several times for severe ear infections.  Then this past fall he went to see an allergist.  For a while, William was throwing up all the time, usually three or more times a week.  He wouldn't act sick or be running a fever.  He would just out of the blue throw up every bit of what was in his belly.  At first I would keep him home and thought he had gastroenteritis.  But when it kept happening over and over without other signs of illness, I figured it had to be something other than a GI bug.  David and I both suspected he had some sort of food allergy that was making him throw up (he also occasionally got a blotchy red rash after eating but we could never pinpoint what food was causing it).  I thought it was eggs and stopped giving those to him.  However, that didn't seem to help.  At his two year check up, I mentioned this constant throwing up to his pediatrician.  She noted that he appeared healthy and was not failing to thrive despite the vomiting.  She still ordered a blood test for food allergies. 

A couple days after the blood work, a nurse called me with the results.  She was quite worked up and said that William's test showed that he had multiple food allergies including milk, wheat, corn, soy, walnuts, peanuts, eggs, and several others that I can't remember.  I was overwhelmed!  He was allergic to everything he liked to eat - what in the world was I going to feed him? I asked the nurse what I should do and she advised me to stop feeding him everything that came back positive on the test.  I said, "Well, what's left?  What can he eat??"  She replied that he was not allergic to shellfish ... Great.  So I guess we will start eating shrimp for every meal.  The nurse also said the doctor had put in a prescription for an epi pen for William along with a referral to an allergist.  I had David pick up the epi pen (at quite a hefty price) but I did not stop feeding Will.  He was allergic to too many things.  We decided that since he had not had a bad reaction to any food such as hives or swelling, we would just wait for the allergist to advise us.  I spent the next month reading food labels and thinking of all the things William wouldn't be able to eat.  The ingredient I was most surprised about was corn.  I didn't think that would be in many food, but you wouldn't believe how many things have corn syrup in them.  I felt a lot of compassion and empathy for parents of kids with severe food allergies.  What a stressful way to live!! How could you send your child to school or to a birthday party?  How could you ever eat out of the house?  It was an eye opening experience.

When we saw the allergist, they did a skin prick test for 30 of the most common allergies, including the 10 foods William has already been tested for.  Poor guy was so mad at me.  I hated holding him while the nurse stuck his back several times.  Five minutes into the test, here is what his back looked like. 

Do you see all the raised red dots?  I thought, oh geez, he's allergic to everything!  But when the doctor looked a him, he pointed out the three largest dots and said those were the only ones that were big enough to count as "true" allergies.  So William is allergic to grass, mold, and peanuts.  The peanut allergy is fairly mild and since William has tolerated eating peanut butter, the doctor said we should continue to give him peanuts.  In fact, it would be best for him to be exposed to peanuts often to help him outgrow the allergy.  Otherwise, William has multiple food "sensitivities" but no other true allergies.  I felt so relieve.  The allergist was also happy that I had not cut any food out of his diet because sometimes it can be harder to reintroduce things once they have been removed. 

So why the throwing up?  The allergist said he could have a specific esinophilic esophogitis that would require GI to scope him to diagnose, but it seemed unnecessary.  While the throwing up is annoying and messy, as my ped had pointed out, he is growing fine.  Most likely it is something he will outgrow.  Which by this point he basically has.  William still has a very high gag reflex.  If he eats too much, coughs hard, or chokes just a little on something, he will throw up and usually throws up a lot!  But the number of instances of vomiting has greatly diminished.  I feel bad now that we put him through so many tests for something that he outgrew within the year.  Hindsight is 20/20.

Our crazy little Will - he always keeps us on his toes.