Mystery Hives

All had been quiet on the tree nut allergy front for a while.  I think I jinxed myself.  Last weekend I was thinking, "Great!  It's been six months since I've had to use the epipen on Barrett, hopefully we can make it another six months."  Well, Sunday evening Barrett fell asleep while watching T.V. at around 5:30 p.m.  Justin moved him upstairs to his bed.  About 7:30 p.m. he woke up because he'd wet the bed.  So Justin changed him and put him in our bed and lay down with him until he fell back asleep.  

I got in bed a little after 10 p.m.  Barrett was tossing and turning a lot, but I figured it was because he'd already been asleep since 5:30 p.m.  At some point in the early morning I could hear him scratching, and I even thought to myself I should rub his back and make sure he doesn't have hives.  I dismissed the thought as being paranoid because he'd been home all day and hadn't eaten anything new.  So I fell back asleep.  

Justin got up at 6:00 a.m. and Barrett popped up wide awake too.  As Justin was undressing Barrett so they could get in the shower he noticed these . . .

Justin called me to come quickly.  Barrett was covered in hives.  It wasn't as extensive as the first time he had a reaction to eating a cashew, but it was bad enough.  I gave him some Benadryl and they quickly went away leaving only some red spots where Barrett had scratched so much that he drew blood.  I didn't even consider using the epipen at that point because it had already been so long since he'd eaten anything and Barrett's breathing was fine.  

I was still pretty frustrated because Barrett hadn't been anywhere but home.  How could he possibly have ingested something with nuts in it??!!  I made a list of everything that Barrett had eaten the day before.  There was nothing he hadn't eaten previously, except the chocolate chip cookies that Justin had made Sunday afternoon, but all those ingredients had been used before.  I called my Mom and then Brittney to tell them what was going on.  In relating the events to Brittney I realized that I had opened a new bag of flour on Saturday and Justin had used the new flour in his cookies.  I was sure that it was the organic flour from Whole Foods that was the culprit.  Barrett had a reaction to one of their frozen pizzas once that didn't have a nut warning on it and I read an article recently about how terrible their labeling is and that lots of people have had allergic reactions to their food that was labeled as safe.  I will NOT be buying anything that is the Whole Foods 365 brand ANYMORE.

I called his allergist to let her know what was going on.  She felt pretty strongly that the hives couldn't have been food related because of the amount of time that had elapsed since he had last eaten (which was the cookies) and when the hives appeared.  I reminded her that Barrett has a history of delayed reactions.  She suggested that I wait until the Benadryl wore off and then feed him another cookie and see what happened.  I asked if I should send him to school and she said yes, but to leave some Benadryl with him in case he broke with more hives.  Wouldn't you know, while I was upstairs putting my makeup on Barrett got into the cookies and ate another one.  I took him to school anyway.  Packing his lunch was the worst.  I didn't know for sure what had caused the reaction so didn't know what to put in his lunch.  It's still so terrible to me that food has become such an enemy.  

Thankfully, thankfully Barrett's preschool teacher has a son with a severe peanut allergy so she knows exactly what I'm going through and was not at all fazed when I told her about the hives and left the Benadryl with her.  As it turned out he was fine all during school with no more hives.  I picked him up at 12:45 p.m. and we went home.  My Mom stopped by as soon as we got home and I was talking to her when Barrett popped up in front of us saying, "AH-HA" and brandishing a half eaten cookie.  I had not moved the cookies out of his reach.  He ended up eating two cookies and seemed just fine the rest of the afternoon.  I took the girls to their swim tryout at 5:30.  Barrett and I are supposed to wait up in the bleachers while they swim.  Barrett had brought four cars with him and was racing them on the bleachers and running laps up and down the stairs.  Every once in a while he would come up to me and I would check on him.  One time I asked, "Are you itchy?" and he lifted up his shirt and said, "No hives."  I swear not 5 minutes later he was back scratching at his elbow.  So I looked and sure enough it was a big hive.  So I lifted up his shirt and found more hives.  I gave him some Benadryl and tried to take some pictures of the hives with my camera phone, but I doubt they turned out.  Between 4 and 5 hours had elapsed since he had eaten the two cookies.  

The next day he didn't eat any cookies but around 1:00 p.m. had about 5 very small hives scattered over his body.  I gave him more Benadryl.  This happened shortly after I had him at Primary Children's hospital to have some blood drawn.  That story could really be a whole new post, but basically I didn't tell him why we were there until he was already on my lap in the chair getting prepped.  He did scream bloody murder when the needle went in, but otherwise did really well.  He was very proud of his green bandage with dinosaurs on it that was wrapped around his elbow.  

Wednesday, I was busy with Barrett's preschool Easter party and getting my hair cut and stuff so I didn't call the allergist's office until Thursday.  Dr. Walker wants to do an in office food challenge with the cookies.  Luckily I had one left.  So I scheduled it for Thursday 24 April, since we are going to be out of town for spring break all next week.  However, Blythe came home from school and ate the last cookie.  Yes, I should have put it in the freezer right away, but didn't before I left for my dental appointment.  But I had told her and Brynne that I needed the cookies to test on Barrett.  Her excuse, I thought you'd already done that by now.  

So I haven't let the allergist know that I don't have the cookie anymore. Blythe said I should just have Justin make another batch of cookies using the same ingredients.  The other possibility is that I made some cookies on Saturday for Barrett to take to his preschool for his birthday the first day we are back from spring break.  I had put most of them in the freezer.  We don't think Barrett ate any of the ones that didn't get frozen, but we aren't 100% certain.  I opened the new package of flour when I was making those cookies.  I want to get the flour tested to see what is in it.  Apparently there are labs where you can send food to have it tested for allergens.  

This didn't happen at great time.  I'm already worried enough about going on vacation.  If I can't keep him safe at home, how can I keep him safe in California?