Peanut Allergy :(

Well, we took Abby Grace to an allergist today, and as we suspected, Abby Grace definitely does have a peanut allergy! Sad, huh, a life without peanut butter! Anyway, this all started back about a year ago when she had some of Brian's noodles from a thai restaurant. She immediately broke out around her mouth after she ate them, and it hit us that the noodles had peanut sauce on them. We talked to her pediatrician about it, and he told us to try something with peanuts in it again a few months later. And so, each time that we have tried peanut butter, we have continued to notice similar reactions including the breaking out, scratchy throat, etc. So, I finally made an appointment today to see if it could be true. Let's just say that Abby Grace wasn't really in the mood to do all this testing stuff, but she hung in there. It made me sad though to have to hold her down while they pricked her back with these different tests. It turns out that she also had a mild reaction to pecans and is allergic to dust mites (who isn't?). So we get to carry an epi-pen around with us now and have to give care action forms to her school on how to treat her if she does have anything with peanuts. However, she has never had any life-threatening symptons when she has been exposed, so I hope she continues to stay that way. The thought of having to use the epi-pen scares me! Also, there is still a chance that she could grow out of it; however, it is a small chance (20% of children do). So, for now, we will carry around our epi-pen, get tested again in about 2 years, and figure out how to avoid peanut butter!