Update on incorporating baked milk and baked cheese

It has been a few weeks since Drama passed the baked cheese oral food challenge. There was some resistance on his part to try new foods with cheese, just like with the baked milk. Would still love to see a paper done on the psychological effects of food allergies. It's very hard to go from life threatening food allergy to growing out of it and learning to eat it again.

He is still learning. Trust is a huge thing. He continually asks me if I'm sure he can have it. It makes my heart skip a beat to tell him yes, I am sure you can have it because what if he was to have a reaction? He would never trust me again.

So far he has had pizza, Mac and cheese, pizza rolls, and taquitos. His allergist suggested he eat baked cheese at least 3 times a week to build up his immunity. Then in September we can do another immunocap test to see if it would be safe to try uncooked milk.

It's been a long and sometimes hard journey but in the end it will be worth it to knock Milk off his food allergy list. I am hoping we can start the baked egg test in September. Then we will have another year of doing the same thing.

Keep Drama in your prayers! Thanks!

Baked Cheese Test Anxiety

Drama has an appointment Monday for his second food challenge. This time we are doing a baked cheese challenge. For this challenge I was instructed by his allergist to buy an Amy's Cheese Pizza and bake it at 425 for 13 minutes.

 

I am not sure why, but all of the food challenges I have read involve Amy's Cheese Pizza so it must be a preferred brand by allergists.

 

FEARS

 

The last food challenge started out difficult. Elijah was afraid to eat the Milk Muffin. I am scared it is going to be the same thing this time around. He still has anxiety eating things with baked milk in it. Getting him to eat baked cheese is going to be interesting. I wonder if anyone else has done a study on the psychology of introducing foods kids were once allergic to.

 

Drama has been told his whole life he can not have anything with Milk in it or he will have a bad reaction and may end up in the hospital. He even still wears a MedicAlert bracelet due to this. Now we are telling him he can have it and he can not process the fact that it's okay now. He says, "are you sure it's okay?" and he has told me "No, I can't have that it has Milk in it". He still refuses to try some new things, such as Cheez It's.

 

PRAYERS

 

I am praying that he takes one bite of this pizza and falls in love with the melty goodness that is mozzarella cheese. I want to share with him Mac -n- Cheese, Lasagna, Pizza, Quesadillas, Taquito's and everything else I can't think of right now with baked cheese. This is just one more step to being declared Milk Allergy FREE. In a few months he will have the last food challenge where he will drink a glass of milk. When he passes that test he will be able to have ice cream, chocolate, yogurt, milk, pudding, sour cream, cream cheese, cold cheese, dressing, etc.

 

I pray that this works and we can try this with Eggs next year. I know he is unlikely to ever outgrow his Nut allergy but just adding Milk and Eggs to his diet will make life a little easier for him. Having food allergies is really hard on kids. You aren't getting all the nutrition other kids are and other kids notice when you are eating something different so you get singled out and made fun of. Some kids are bullied. It takes a toll on a childs self esteem. I am asking for prayers for Drama that he passes this food challenge. I will update everyone on Monday on how the food challenge went.