Some Background
My son has had three allergies:

  • milk protein called casein
  • egg whites
  • mold

Most people thought that since he was allergic to milk, that meant he was just lactose intolerant. That assumption annoyed the hell out of Meri and bothered me a bit as well since it really seemed like people (in general) were downplaying one of Aaron’s major afflictions and it was just blatantly wrong.

This allergy had major ramifications in our lives. We had to watch EVERYTHING Aaron ate. We had a few incidents at Aaron’s school over his diet and what they were feeding him. Everybody pays attention to the peanut allergy and people go out of their way to protect children with this allergy but the same is not true of children with a milk allergy. That goes back to the thing that annoys Meri and I, generally people think that milk allergy = lactose intolerance. When you couple the milk allergy with an egg allergy, you are talking about a major limitation on what a person can eat!It seemed as if milk (casein specifically) and eggs were in every processed food item sold.

The first couple of trips to the grocery store after we learned about Aaron’s allergies were marathon 3-hour trips. Meri (who taught me all that I know regarding the allergy) read every label of everything that we would normally get. Sure enough, most of it had to be put back. It was frustrating at first. Most people find it very overwhelming when they really try to remove egg and milk from their diets. But now…

The Good News
When Aaron went to his last allergist appointment, he had an allergy test. It was horrible and sucked a lot for he and I (mostly him, since he had to endure it, me a lil bit since I had to hold him). The results of the blood test were extraordinary though. Our son had allergies no longer!

This was great news for the whole family! We were skeptical though. The allergist shared our sentiment and thus ordered a blood test. Meri took Aaron to have his blood test done and we wait about two weeks and we don’t hear anything. Fast forward to this morning and Meri calls the allergists’ office and asks for the results of the blood test. They told her that all of the allergies came back negative! NEGATIVE!!

w00t! This is awesome! No more EpiPens, no more saying “boo boo belly” or “No, you can’t eat that because it’s boo boo”. When we go out to eat, we don’t just have to order him chicken fingers or pasta or french fries; he can (eventually) eat whatever is on the menu!

Aaron’s behavior and reaction
Aaron was very good about knowing what was bad (“boo boo”) for him. This past weekend, we were at a neighbor’s house and Aaron was playing with their daughter. She was eating a cookie and she asked Aaron if he wanted one. He responded with “what kind is it?” (!!) and she said “chocolate chip”. He told her “No, it’s boo boo. I can’t have it.” and that was the end of the subject. He didn’t complain or have any sort of negative reaction; he just kept playing! He dealt with his allergies as well as anybody could expect him to.

Going forward
Now we have the great privilege of teaching him to eat foods that used to be off-limits for him. We have to spend the next few years introducing the new foods into his diet. We can’t just take him out to pizza tonight and get him a huge glass of milk because that would tear his stomach up (since his body doesn’t know how to digest that food).