Patches Update!

Well, now that I have a minute to spare between the muffins cooling and the diapers in the washer (blah!), here is a little catch up on our latest news. The patches were kind of a sad event for us. I know it could have been a lot worse but it was pretty bad, all in all. We took them off on Wednesday and immediately I knew there were a lot of positives. The most surprising of all were the egg and wheat patches-- egg looked AWFUL and the wheat looked pretty rough. Soy rivaled egg for the most affected area, but when B's patches were read, the allergist listed soy, egg, turkey, peas, peaches, oats, rice, sweet potato, apple, and pork as fails. The 15th patch was the control so that was neutral. The milk patch actually looked not so bad but I guess because of the other ones and because of B's history, the milk trial still won't happen until around this time next year, when she is 2 1/2, and it will occur in the hospital. The wheat, soy and egg trials will also all occur in the hospital but not until the patches come back clear. She will be retested with patches in 9-12 months from now. When we are able to challenge all of her oral fails, the challenges will all most likely occur in the hospital as well-- I am hoping maybe we can trial the minor fails at home when we are ready to challenge?

We did get the ok to go ahead and trial beef (looking for grass-fed), chicken and green beans, since those patches pretty much resembled the control. DH and I decided to hold off on chicken because the turkey fail was fairly prominent and since chicken is also a common FPIES trigger that we would consider similar to turkey. We will be trialling coconut (in the form of flour and milk) this upcoming week and then beef the following week. We will then trial something that seems innocuous the week after beef and then trial green beans following THAT week.

It has been a few days since the patches were off and the egg and soy have shown no improvement, the wheat area actually looks worse and the turkey and oat area are relatively unchanged as well. Most of the other areas of inflammation have gone away, but much of the areas that reacted are still pretty bumpy and sandpaper-like, even though some aren't so red anymore. I still cringe when I see B's poor little sad back. It looks like it hurts. We have been applying hydrocortizone in the AM and PM and I am hoping it helps.

An interesting note from our patch testing. . . B had a reflux flare up for the duration that the patches were on. Within 24 hrs of the patches being removed, the symptoms disappeared. No new foods were being fed that week and no new teeth were popping in. I find this very interesting. . .

Anyways, more work to be had with recipes this week so keep posted. By next Friday there should be some newbies!