Allergies

Lucas' allergy test was this morning. Growing up, I've heard about allergy tests, but when the doctor was trying to describe to me what he was going to be doing to Lucas, I envisioned something completely different. So when we were in the exam room and the doctor started the procedure, I was completely unprepared for Lucas actually being in PAIN. The moment I realized that Lucas was being poked with needles, I felt horrible. I don't know exactly what I could have done differently though... there is no way to prepare a 4 year old without scaring him. The silver lining was that the whole procedure only took about 20 seconds. The doctor covered Lucas' back with 54 (I repeat... 54!) needle pricks! Luckily, the doctor didn't have to poke Lucas 54 times, only 9 times (thanks to the needle sets that each had 6 prongs). Anyway... after the first poke, Lucas knew he didn't like it and was writhing and crying. This is the same boy that doesn't cry at shots and just watched the nurse prick his thumb and squeeze blood out of it at one of the last appointments, so I knew it must really be hurting him. After all the poking was complete, the doctor said that he would be back with the results in 20 minutes, set a hand timer and left us. Poor Lucas continued to cry for at least 7 minutes and not even a lollipop would calm him. Once he calmed down, he was fine. In fact, tonight at dinner, I wanted him to tell Jason about his doctor's appointment and the only information he willingly gave was the fact that the doctor gave him a lollipop that he sucked on until he could see the stick. After a few prompts, he finally told Jason about how the doctor poked him on his back. It must not have been quite as tramatic as it seemed sitting in that exam room.

As far as the results go... he definitely has allergies, all of which are the inhalant type (ie, dust, mold, pollen). I was having nightmares about finding out that he was allergic to milk or nuts... considering that his main source of nutrition are milk and peanut butter & jelly! On the doctor's scale of 0 to 4 rating the severity of the allergy (4 being the absolute worst), Lucas' worst were 2s, which hopefully means that they are fairly mild. Of course, mild or severe is irrelevent when they are causing all these other issues (low weight, hearing loss, etc). So the course of action at this point is getting Lucas' bedroom as allergen-free as possible. This means getting him an allergy control barrier for his mattress, box springs, and pillow, making sure that his room is free of dust and pollen, and giving him a dose of Claritin every morning. The doctor wants a follow-up in mid June to check on how he is doing and seeing if this plan of attack has helped his eustachian tubes function properly. If there hasn't been any change, then at that time he may have Lucas start using a nasal spray. The doctor is optimistic that Lucas' allergies are mild enough to be controlled without allergy shots, so that is definitely a good thing. I guess I need to start looking into getting that allergy control barrier for his bed! The doctor did say that the chances are pretty high that Eli has some similar allergies, so now that the boys are sharing a bedroom, whatever I'm doing to help Lucas will also be helping Eli.