I took Mia to Colorado Allergy and Asthma center yesterday to get an Allergy test. She was in such a good mood when she woke up. All smiles and giggles. She watched Toy Story 2 on her iPad while we sat in the waiting room. Acouple times and broke out in uncontrollable laughter, the other people waiting for their appointments couldn't help but giggle at her joy.
We were escorted into the back room and briefed on what they would be testing for. The nurse showed me the testing needles. Little blue toothpick like objects that hold the allergens in a little resevoir. I felt terrible knowing that we would have to sour her mood in just a few minutes.
The nurse used a pen to write columns of numbers on her back. Each column represented a classification of an allergy. Nuts, Pets, Mold, Environmental, Food. Mia was already squirming from the writing. It came time to administer the test. I held her down and the nurse quickly and precisely plunged each pick into her back.
Mia started crying, and struggled to lift herself up off of her stomach. I pushed her back onto the butcher paper. I could feel her shaking in pain with each poke. Her cheeks flushed and the skin on her body turned blotchy red. Tears streamed down her face and she cried of pure confusion. There were roughly 40 pokes when all was said and done. We had to wait 15 minutes to see which pokes would pop up with a welt. She tried to reach around to itch her back, i had to hold her hands down annoying her further.
The 15 minutes passed and there were four prominent welts on her back. Dogs, cats, pistachios and cashews. Mia's tested allergic to those four. The rank the welt size on a scale of one to four. One being the smallest. She ranked a four on each.
I was relieved to see she didn't have any reaction to wheat. It's common for kids on the Autism spectrum to have a gluten intolerance and I have often wondered if Mia had one too. The Dr. perscribed us four epi pens to have on hand in case Mia comes in contact with a tree nut. She explained that the first reaction is the mildest and the next time she's exposed to a tree nut she could swell much worse than the first time which would compromise her airway. I was taught how to inject the pen into the thigh muscle. I hope I never have to.
I asked, what do I do with my dog? I was relieved when they said I don't need to get rid of her. Just keep her out of Mia's room and vacuum daily. Hopefully that will cut down on Mia's ear infections. Time will tell if it works.
