I couldn't have asked for a greater Christmas present this year. Just a few days before Christmas, I received a call from Johns Hopkins Hospital with the lab work results for my oldest son. Ever since he was a baby, he has never been able to have any dairy products without severe and life threatening reactions. We had him retested every few years with no change in his dairy allergy. It's now been four years since we last had him tested. (He is 12 years old.) We got the blood work back from his RAST test, and although it is not a negative result (less than .1 out of 100), he came back at .3 out of 100!!! It is truly miraculous! Because of that, he now qualifies for challenge testing. We will start out by baking 1/12 c of cow's milk and 11/12 c rice or almond milk into a batch of muffins or pancakes, let him eat 1 every other day (which would be equivalent to about a tsp. or so of cow's milk per serving) and observe him for a month or so. If he shows no reaction, then we will increase his amount little by little. Although this is VERY exciting news, I will still have my epipen in hand, just in case. I plan on doing this as a blind test so that he won't know which muffin has the dairy in it. That way I can be a little bit more objective with his results.
When I shared with my son the results of his blood work, he said that the first thing he wants to eat when he can have dairy is a doughnut! (I wouldn't thought it would've been cheese or ice cream:)). I will keep you posted on our progress. My hope is that by the time he is fully independent and on his own, he will be able to fully tolerate dairy products, if not straight, then at least in baked goods. I will also be testing my boys who get ear infections at the same time, watching for any symptoms and seeing what level, if any, of dairy they can tolerate. Here's to a bright future and a Happy New Year!!!
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