10 Month Clem Update & Allergy Awareness

Clem is 10 months old this week. I'm way overdue for an update; thankfully life at home gives us far less 'news' than when he was in hospital, and many more ordinary moments. In the lovely, yet often mundane or even tedious parts of parenting two young children, we still feel very grateful that Clem is home with us and doing so well. 

His final surgery last May seems to have effectively given him full, normal digestive system function. His surgeon wanted to see him in August, three months post surgery, but we suspect her main motivation was to finally see one of Clem's lovely smiles, as she is unconcerned and we only need to go back for his routine twelve month follow up. 

His developmental assessment with the team from the Grace NICU also went well. Thankfully, despite his rough start, all signs point to him growing and developing just fine. He's now well and truly on the move, and is a very speedy commando crawler with strong interests in racing us to electrical cords, opening and closing drawers, and sampling delicious looking bits of floor-fluff. 

Like any second child, he picked up his share of winter bugs, one of which saw him admitted to Orange hospital as a precaution due to his medical history. Felt a bit like old times, but thankfully he recovered well and was released after two nights. 

Clem enthusiastically started eating solid foods at six months. Soon after, unfortunately, he showed signs of food allergies. So apparently we're not quite done with medical road trips, and somehow fitted one into the busy weeks when his Grammy and Gramps had come to visit from the US. 

The nearest peadiatric allergist is four hours away in Sydney, but glad we could get testing done so quickly and a plan in place, with a specialist and dietician who are both very current with what is known about allergies in children. 

I have to admit, I am only just now realising how limited my understanding of food allergies was. The area itself can be a bit of a minefield, with conflicting information and approaches, as well as much confusion with food intolerances. I'm writing this post partly to answer questions for friends who've been asking, but also as an exercise in allergy awareness, to the best of my current understanding of Clem's case. 

Allergy testing is a somewhat complicated process, with tests for some foods only providing conclusive results once Clem's a little older. For now, based on skin prick testing and reactions we've seen, we've been advised he must avoid all dairy, egg, nuts and most types of fish (he's non-reactive to prawns, thank goodness!) with the slow and cautious introduction of other foods he hasn't yet eaten. It's an anxiety riddled process, but hoping it will lead to more answers in a few months. 

One of Clem's allergic reactions (the line on his belly is a scar from his last surgery)

When people talk about allergies, it's often assumed that all will be well if the allergenic food isn't actually swallowed, like picking the olives off a pizza. It's also often assumed that unless a reaction is anaphylactic, it isn't that big a deal. 

Clem's allergic reactions are considered 'moderate'. The visible signs for him are red rashes around the mouth spreading onto his torso, intensely itchy hives that cover his whole body, weeping eczema, vomiting and general unsettledness. We are immensely grateful that he hasn't had any anaphylactic reactions as yet, however we've learned that the more 'moderate' reactions he has, the greater likelihood that he may suddenly have a 'severe', life threatening reaction. So we have had to become highly vigilant to try and avoid any accidental ingestion, or contact with the things he's allergic to. 

It's a bit hard to see, but this was a raised welt from a tiny dab of egg white on his skin

I say 'contact', as while his reactions are 'moderate', his sensitivity is quite high, in that he reacts to even tiny amounts of the allergen. An accidental drop of milk on his leg, or touching his food with hands that have traces of dairy, has unfortunately proven enough to give him whole-body hives reactions, so we have to be extremely careful to avoid cross contamination while preparing his food, and also around other people's food. 

Unfortunately this means that for now at least, we have been strongly advised that Clem should not eat any food except what we've prepared ourselves, unless we are certain of the ingredients and that there has been no contamination. Taking all his own food to restaurants has certainly taken the fun and spontaneous convenience from eating out, but seems like a sensible effort. Ironically, food that comes in little packets (which we mostly avoid) is a safer option for him than something freshly prepared under unknown conditions. Please don't be offended if we bring food for him. Especially while we're still working out what he reacts to, we just need to know exactly what he's eaten and how it was prepared, so if we see any new reactions we have a better chance of pinning down the cause. 

It gives us hope that at least some of these allergies are often outgrown, so fingers crossed that will happen for Clem.  Lena is very switched on to the new food rules in the house which has been very helpful. It's been a stressful time for us, with lots of extra work to make sure Clem's food stays safe, but it's all worth it. 

Thanks for reading, more than happy to answer any questions. 

R