Allergies

We had our follow up appointment this morning with Dr. Collaco. Since our last appointment, we have followed the regime of medications prescribed. We completed five days of the oral steroids and two weeks of an antibiotic to help clear Andrew's sinus infection. As for the nasal spray, Andrew definitely likes it least of all the medicines, but he tolerates and has gotten much better about letting us give him a spray in each nostril once a day. As for the inhaler, he was really apprehensive at first, but for kids, they recommend a spacer, which is like a tube with a mask which is attached to the inhaler. So, we told Andrew that it was like a firefighter's mask and that has helped us greatly in administering two puffs twice a day.

So after three weeks, we told him how much improvement we have seen with Andrew. First, we told him about the significant decrease in coughing. Andrew doesn't cough every day anymore and the spells aren't as violent either. And even though he has coughed at times over the last few days, we wonder if it's due to the colder weather.

Secondly (and most importantly to me), we told him how Andrew is vomiting less too. Andrew made it two weeks without vomiting. It seems like forever since we have had a two week drought. Unfortunately, he ended up throwing up last Monday night at bath time. For whatever reason (maybe drank some bath water or put pressure on his tummy), he started coughing and that was the end of that. We are sad that it happened, but still very ecstatic about just making it two weeks. In addition, he hasn't thrown up since then. Also, we have also seen Andrew not throw up where before he would have. So, we are thrilled with the results thus far and are incredibly hopeful that things just keep getting better from here on out. Likewise, Dr. Collaco was as happy with the progress as we have been.

And not to discount Andrew and credit only the medicine, Andrew has also done really well to decrease the vomitting. I think he has learned to calm down and breathe when he starts to cough.

Dr. Collaco still recommended the prick test so that we could determine what Andrew is allergic to in hopes that we can minimize his exposure to them. I had forewarned Andrew about the test telling him that they were going to poke his back a few times and that would be it. He started to put up a little fuss just as the test was starting, but he made it through with flying colors. He didn't mind one bit when they wrote the letters (A through D) on his back. He was very intrigued by it actually. But I think the pricks did hurt him a little bit as he winced, but never did he cry. He really is such a trooper.

As we waited for the results, we let Andrew watch Max & Ruby on my phone to keep his mind of his back. He tried to scratch his back a few times and said it was itchy and that it hurt. We kept reminding him that we were almost done. He would still mention the letters on his back. He then said he wanted to see it. We told him that he couldn't for fear it would scare him. But I think he was more interested in the fact they wrote letters on him. So, we thought that maybe we could take a picture with the camera and show him. So, we asked him if he would want that to which he quickly said yes. After we showed him the picture, he went right back to wanting more Max & Ruby. Sounds about right. But I am glad he wasn't scared. Truthfully, I was. It pains me to have to put through Andrew through all these procedures. But hopefully, we learn what we need to from them and get Andrew completely healthy. I tell myself it will be worth it then.

Anyways, after twenty minutes, Dr. Collaco returned to the room to examine the results. According to the test, Andrew is allergic to pigweed (I hadn't ever heard of it until today) and has a mild allergy to dust mites. We then discussed how we would continue to treat Andrew's allergies. We are going to try reducing Andrew's inhaler dosage to once a day (instead of two), but keep with the same dosage for the nasal spray (once a day) since pigweed is currently in season. And the doctor also recommended we get a pillow cover that would eliminate the dust mites. We will schedule another appointment in a few months to see about taking Andrew off the medicines once the pigweed season is over.

**Note: Under letter A, the predominant inflamed area on the top right section is the false positive. Directly beneath it was the area for dust mites. It didn't inflamed until later in the waiting period after we took the picture. Under letter C, the pigweed area is the top right marking. Again, it didn't inflamed until later too.