We met with James' doctor today to go over all his lab work & allergy tests. Though he tested negative for parasites, she is convinced with the timeline of when he was in the river in Kerrville, and when the diareah started (about 36 hours later), that he did have a parasite that he was able to rid his body of naturally.
I did not realize how extensive the testing was that they did until today. She not only went over all of his allergy results with us, but also how his body has taken to, or rejected all of his regular immunizations. Because he is a boy and plays in (and eats) the dirt a lot, she was very concerned that his body did not have very many antiboties for the tetanis shot, so he will be getting that one again, along with two others this week. They will then do more labs in 6 weeks to see if there is an improvement in his antibodies to these 3 shots.
All of his blah blah blah 'globins' (too long of words for Mommy to remember) in his blood came back excellent....those are the things that fight infection and she said his immune system couldn't be better. She also said that surprisingly enough, he did have antibodies for a certain strain of pnemonia that he did not ever receive in a vaccine (because it is not given in vaccines under 3 years old), so he probably picked it up along the way, and his awesome little immune system fought it off naturally!
She did say that his allergy numbers are pretty much through the roof (just like Mommy!), but that just means that he is at a higher risk of developing allergies later, whether they are food or natural ones like dust & pollen.
So, on to the food allergies. Every food they tested him for came up negative!!! Which should mean that he has outgrown all of them already!!!!!!!!! Except eggs & egg whites. But, they only scored a 1, which is the lowest score. She said that a severe allergy is around 100 or higher, so she is not really concerned about it all that much. Which is awesome, because I was really stressing about what to do for his birthday cake in July.
We are now keeping a food journal of everything he eats. We can start introducing things back into his diet, starting with them being cooked. Like, something that is cooked with butter, but to avoid ice cream or whole milk for now. After he tries the 'new' food for about 5 days with no reaction, we can then move on to another one or try adding it in greater quantities, like cooking with a cream soup in a casserole.
This doctor has plaques & articles all over her office from Texas Monthly and all sorts of magazines about being a 'Super Doctor' in Texas. After today, I certainly agree! We couldn't be happier with her and are so thankful that we found a good one! So, here's to hoping and praying for good things to come with all of these food experiments we have coming up over the next few weeks! I would really love to be able to cook with milk and cheese again soon! Man, I sure do miss chicken & dumplins!
