This sweet adorable happy girl is 6 months old today. It continues to amaze us that she is so happy all the time since she has had TERRIBLE eczema since she was 3 weeks old. It got to be so bad that we took her to the allergist and after doing a skin test and blood work we finally found out all the she is allergic to. Needless to say yesterday at the doctors was a REALLY BAD DAY.
Penelope is terribly allergic to Nuts (she is a #4 out of 6) so the doctor told us it is worse than that since she has never been exposed to nuts (it is a huge blessing that I did not breast feed her it would have been disastrous) so for her to be that high of a number if she ever ate nuts she would be higher. It really affects her skin like no other, we had to get rid of all the nut products in the house and we all can not eat them. If it is in the air or on our skin and then touch or kiss her she reacts immediately. Poor thing.
If anyone knows me at all you know that I have major issues with needles, surgery, blood, etc. Well now I am the proud owner of an EpiPen. I cannot believe that I have to carry one around with me and will have to use it if needs be on Penelope. Me of all people!!!!!
Here are some pictures to show how bad and I am only sharing them so that we can remember and look back, so sorry for the one of the butt. I took all of these on my iphone so trust me when I say it is much worse in person. For some reason the worst of it always is on her back, butt and hips.
All over her face and neck seriously soooooo sad.
Here she is getting the skin test done.
She has had tons of prescriptions with steroids to help and nothing really seems to get rid of it so hopefully now that we know what to be aware of then hopefully her skin will get to look like a normal person.
Also with the blood test they test a persons overall allergy levels and a normal persons is a 3 or 4 but Penelope's is a 35. Crazy high. So the Dr. said that it means that Penelope is allergic to alot of other things and her body knows she is allergic to them and reacts to them but it is not in her blood yet so we are going to be doing more blood work every 2-3 months to find out all of the things that she is allergic to. He said since her allergen level is so high that she will be allergic to seafood since that is high on a allergy level and to get all of the seafood out of the house and not to eat it. He will not be surprised if she is allergic to milk, wheat, eggs, soy since she was unable to have a formula with any of those products in them and he has prescribed a formula that is totally allergen free, Procate.
On top of that both Gweniveve and Penelope are allergic to Dust Mites and so we had to buy allergen free bedding, mattress covers and pillows. We also did get a air purifier to help. He highly recommends that we have ALL hardwood floors and we will do that.
This is Gwen when she has a bad allergy attack. All those red spots are her eczema and she gets a runny stuffed up nose like crazy.
Her skin test where she came up positive for Dust Mites, just like her father.
Gwen had testing since they were concerned with all of her allergy attacks and how she sounds stuffed up all the time. I shared with the Dr. that she snores like a big grown man also, so the Dr. had her get an X-Ray of her Adenoids and Tonsils. Yesterday he shared with us that Gwen's Adenoids where HUGE and that accompanied with her tonsils being large she has air flow the size of a tip of a pencil. He was terribly surprised that she has not had asthma or breathing problems her whole life. He said that she needed to get them removed ASAP. So we now have an appointment to see the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist to get her into surgery.
It was a long day in the Dr.'s office. Hours of him telling me everything. Gwen took some pictures on my iphone and this one I liked since it is of Dr. Chao Lin. We love him, he talks to you and answers all of your questions and explains everything in detail.
