Peanuts suck!

A few weeks ago we gave Keaton some peanut butter for lunch and he didn't like the taste so he spit it out. Luckily he didn't swallow any because his lip swelled up almost immediately.  At that point we were hoping it was a coincidence and he just bit his lip, but I had a feeling it was because of the peanut butter.

So off to the allergist we went!  Keaton was such a good sport and didn't cry when they were messing with his back.  He got 6 pricks in all and the nuts they tested were almonds, cashews and peanuts.  I was praying so hard that he wasn't allergic to almonds.  As most of you know my step-dad is an almond farmer and we live in the middle of the orchard!  It would have been so hard if he was allergic to almonds since we couldn't really get away from them when we visit California.  Luckily, he isn't allergic to almonds, but peanuts and cashews gave a positive allergic reaction on his back.

Here we are right before they pricked his back!

This is his back minutes after they did the tests.  The top line is almonds middle is cashews and the bottom, huge reaction is peanuts.  I'm glad we know that he has this allergy so we can begin to monitor the foods we buy and the things he eats.  I am so thankful that he didn't have a reaction up to this point.

We now have our Auvi-Q (equivalent to Epipen) ready to go if needed.  I'm also checking all of the labels on the foods we eat and realize this is going to take some management from us to make sure we know what he is eating at all times.  We have to go back to the allergist in a year for them to draw his blood.  Once they do a blood draw that will give them a benchmark number.  We will then go back every 6 months to a year to monitor that number in the hopes that it will go down.  If it goes down over time he may have the chance of outgrowing the allergy.  Keeping my fingers crossed!