Clara Update

Food allergies-- I am happy to report that several of Clara's food allergies are beginning to disappear. The allergist said that as she got older, her allergies might change, which seems to be the case. He said she might start trading food ones for environmental ones. We've added bananas, berries and carrots back into her diet without any problems. The bananas and carrots both caused immediate itching in her mouth before and now she can eat them without incident. I think she can also have broccoli, cauliflower, cantaloupe and watermelon. Honeydew seems to still cause problems though. Raw eggs still cause major hives and we'll continue to steer clear of fish, peanuts and nuts.

Environmental allergies-- We had her follow-up appointment for her sinus infection on December 15. The doctor did another CT scan and her sinuses were all clear. Her adenoids were also normal. Since the antibiotic was able to clear the infection and everything looks normal, we're going to see how she does on the daily antihistamine for a while.

I really think it's helping. She gets sick nearly every time we go out west, but this time she didn't. In fact, she hasn't been sick since the sinus infection in November. She has been coughing every once in a while this past week, so we'll see if it goes away on it's own now that she's on the antihistamine. If she continues to have frequent infections, the next step will be weekly allergy shots. I'm praying we don't have to go that route. I at least want to go through this spring to see if the antihistamine offers her enough relief when the pollen starts to fall.

I'm pretty sure we're going to switch allergists. I think her current allergist is very knowledgeable and I trust his judgement, he's just not got the best bedside manner. He has more than one location and in my opinion just has way too many patients. I do love his nursing staff though. They've all been very friendly and great with Clara. The doctor is very abrupt, in and out as quick as he can, not very personable, doesn't look you in the eye, that kind of stuff. He really doesn't even acknowledge Clara when we go in. I just want someone who's a little better with kids. I ran it past our doctor and I'm obviously not the first patient that's had those thoughts, so he gave me a referral for a new one. If this is someone that Clara's going to be seeing a lot of in the next few years, I want someone that can at least pretend that they like her.