Dispatches from Blogblivion

We’ve noted that Henry is clearly allergic to dairy, on top of any oher sensitivities or allergies. It’s beyond a doubt that was the specific food that caused the level of reaction that earned him an ambulance ride this past winter, though the whole meal was a potential mess in that regard, down to the fact I was cooking harriedly and tossing food his way to calm him down with hands that had handled this and that.

Last night he got a skin reaction under his arms, on his upper arms and down onto his chest, in a pattern that smacked of reacting to contact with residue of margarine and parm cheese on one or both of our sets of hands when we picked him up.

So today we pointedly experimented, dabbing a little plain, unflavored, uncolored, organic hippy yogurt marketed for babies on his back in an area where he would not have had any other reason to break out.

It was spectacular. Not like when I did the same with various soaps and such and got no response.

We may or may not have gotten some decent pictures showing how it looks when this happens.

Just from contact.

For someone cooking and serving, that means no touching the baby until the hands are thoroughly clean. It means, as I already figured, being careful about cross-contamination.

Now, he has had times when there was no apparent reaction, as when he found a dried sliver of cheese on the floor and sucked on it a while back. The reactions may still vary depending on what form the dairy product takes, aging and so forth, but… hand with parm cheese and margarine residue affected him. Tiny dabs of yougurt affected him. On skin contact.

Sheesh.

He’s also clearly allergic/very sensitive red dye 40 that’s in so many things. He’s less so to the standard petroleum-based yellow. He’s minimally or not at all to the standard blue. In Kool-Aid, it’s the dye, because he can drink the clear flavor with impunity. Which is great, because then he drinks more and gets well hydrated, which helps his skin. The girls are starting to learn he can’t have certain things and that it’s serious.

What’s not clear is whether dairy passes through breast milk in a form that will affect him. That’s hard to test with confidence. It’s becoming a problem for Deb to be unable to have it freely on the chance it might.

At least we have some certainty as to which things are which, and can move with some confidence in what we consider okay, or test him on next. Some things it’s quantity. We had a scare with corn, but he can eat small amounts. Not as grain, but as a vegetable. Despite the eventual confirmation sweet potato could bother him, it should actually be fine in small amounts. It took extremes to get him to react to it. I worried tonight when he ate close to half of a golden delicious apple, which is currently the only raw fruit he can definitely have. It went over fine, though.