SO MUCH EXCITEMENT!

I'm not even sure where to begin!  Molly, and our family, are going to be adventuring into a new world of OIT.  What is OIT, you ask?  AWESOME QUESTION!  OIT is oral immunotherapy.  For us, that means that Dr. Sugerman, of Dallas Allergy and Immunology will begin giving Molly micrograms of peanut and tree nut in a liquid solution in small doses everyday.  The long term goal is for Molly to be able to tolerate whole peanuts and tree nuts.  Molly has had past anaphylactic reactions to peanuts and carries Auvi-Q an Epinephrine auto injector (similar to Epi-pens) with her at all times.  Is this scary for us?  YES.  Will it be life changing for us?  YES!   Is is it safe!  It does have risks, however, in a controlled setting, under the supervision of an allergy doctor, the risk is minimized (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME ON YOUR OWN!!!). For many years, allergist have done OIT with patients who are allergic to medications such as aspirin and antibiotics safely. 

Molly had her first appointment recently and it was fantastic.  Molly had a peanut component test done.  We had never had this lab before and even though we already knew that Molly had anaphylactic reactions in the past, it confirmed what we already knew.  Molly had positive results for 3 of the different components.  Most importantly, she tested positive to ara h2, the peanut component associated with anaphylactic reactions.  Although seeing this result on paper was kind of a bummer, it did not change anything and some other RAST scores indicated that Molly might be able to have a food challenge to almonds.  Molly has had low RAST scores but high skin test scores to almonds in the past (this is probably due to be amazingly atopic, love that eczema!). Molly successfully completed an almond food challenge, eating an amazing 42 almonds that day in a period of 6 hours!  HOORAY! 

Dr. Sugerman also told us he thought Molly would be a great candidate to try multiple OIT at once, taking peanut, cashew, and walnut doses all at one time!  She will be one of the first to try this at Dallas Allergy and Immunology- we are excited because that will shorten the duration of the program for us, which is normally 6 months for EACH allergy. 

We head back to Dallas on March 5th and begin the program officially on the 6th....keep following us in our adventures in OIT!