Allergies strike again

Rose's allergies have been sneaking up again on us since Christmas. They peaked this week with her eczema attacking her neck to the point of oozing and bleeding again, just like when she was a baby. It hasn't been this bad since she was about 2.

Her worst allergy is dairy. It's not lactose intolerance, it's actual allergy to milk protein, called casein. We have her on a casein-free diet until the crisis is past, and will restrict casein for several weeks to empty her bucket.

An allergy doctor explained allergies to me this way: An allergic person has an allergy "bucket." When you eat foods you are allergic to, it fills the bucket. If you eat just a little, just a little is in the bucket, and if you eat a lot of it (or a little several days in a row), the bucket can be filled to overflowing. When the bucket starts overflowing, that's when you see reactions. If you empty the bucket, chances are you can have a little of the trigger substance before you see a reaction. The trick is that some substances clear out of the bucket in hours, others in weeks.

So, no milk for Rose for a while. I did find some hemp milk at the store, and we'll give that a shot. We've tried almond milk, rice milk, oat milk and soy milk, but she has severe allergic reactions to all of the above. When she was little, I made her some cashew milk for a while, but I didn't like the nutritional profile of that very much.

Of course, if it were just milk and cheese, it wouldn't be such a big problem. But there is casein (and corn, a food that three of the seven of us are allergic to) in almost every processed food these days. McDonald's finally admitted not too long ago that there is even casein in their french fries.

Meanwhile, Kate has been suffering from dishydrosis, an awful skin problem, on her hands. The skin gets small blisters, which itch fiercely. The blisters pop, bleed, ooze, then crust. Repeated attacks make the skin tough and leathery, then eventually shell-like. We tried like crazy to determine the cause of the problem, and finally came down to one suspect: nickel. Now, there is a little nickel in chocolate, and a little in peanut butter (two food groups, according to her), but the main source is her braces! We are very, very happy that her braces should be coming off this calendar year. I've spoken to her orthodontist, who says he can make her retainer out of tungsten or plain plastic. He says he is seeing more and more nickel allergies, something that he never saw as recently as 5 years ago.

We are working on shoring up the flagging immune systems in our family, and plugging any leaky gut issues, as those are reported to worsen allergies. It's been a nice couple months, just totally ignoring the allergies, but it's time to be vigilant once again.

Rats.

No Major League Baseball for you, young lady!

I had to put Christie on steroids this week. Last Friday, she got a stripe of rash on her face. It was a long welt like a hive next to her nose. The next day it was all over her face. By the weekend it spread to her ears and covered hairline to chin. She did not want to go to church and get teased about it on Saturday night. We spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday feeding her Benadryl and Advil and brainstorming what it could possibly be causing it and watching her mouth and tongue very closely for breathing problems.

She put lotion on the welt after it came up, but not before, and not on her whole face. I rated that possibility at 15%. She used a new pillowcase Thursday night, but it had been washed before she put it on her pillow. I gave that a 35% possibility of causing the problem. We were absolutely mystified what the other 50% could be.

I took her to the doctor on Tuesday morning. While we were in the waiting room, I saw the light bulb go on over her head. "Mom, I went to the dentist Thursday!" That was it. Latex gloves. I was a bit surprised by the persistence of the rash after the allergen had been removed, but the doctor said that was almost certainly it.

It has been a long, slow heal. The welts went from puffy and white to raw and sore like a sunburn in great vertical stripes on her face. If the rash were on her arms or back, I think we would have skipped the Prednisone and just let nature take its course. But on her face, it's so painful and so shocking to look at, that I took pity on her and agreed to the drugs.

Nasty stuff, Prednisone.