Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Tough Day Tuesday

Abigail still nice and happy before any of her testing began. We are sitting in the allergy clinic waiting room.If you look closely, you can see the whelps (hives) that formed just minutes after the skin test solutions was placed on the inside of both of her arms.

Patch testing was done on some of the foods that tested negative. We will remove the "patches" on Thursday afternoon, and the results will be read on Friday.
Well, today was a very long and tough day, as we had expected. The doctor came in and took Abigail's history. Based upon what we told him, he decided to do 45 skin pricks. Once she was stuck she proceeded to scream at the top of her lungs, flail her body so that we could barley hold onto her, and itch obsessively. The main problem with all of this was that she was not allowed to scratch the hives or touch anything to the inside of her arms! Yeah, I know....
After all that, we had to place the patches. Underneath each round container is "whole food". Or, in layman's terms, baby food. These will stay on with no water exposure (including bath and sweat) until Friday. Okay, I am sure you are all wondering about the results. Are you ready? Okay, here you go: milk, casein (milk by-product), egg white, egg yolk, wheat, codfish, peanut, peas, barley, corn, rye, cashew, walnut, halibut, and tree nuts. The patch testing will tell if there is a delayed reaction to any of them that have previously tested negative. The allergist also said that he may do more skin prick testing on Friday. He said this several different times, so I am thinking that is highly likely.

Prayer Requests: The the patch testing will provide accurate results...there is still some question if the small amount of steroids they gave her yesterday could pose a problem. With the Lord's help, I know the results will be accurate.