EpiSerious....

Today Ben had his first appointment (of MANY) for Sublingual Immunotherapy. Or for those of us who speak English...'Drop Therapy'. We found out recently that Ben has a lot of allergies. Because he has so many and they are what the doctor called 'year-round' allergies he suggested that we do this therapy program. He will be taking drops for the next 3-5 years, and for the first 6 weeks we will be in the doctors office weekly. He also has two other daily prescriptions in addition to the drops.

The good news? If these drops work, his allergies can completely disappear. These are for all his allergies except for the food allergies. Most of his are grass, bushes, and trees. He is even allergic to Oak! The food allergies will be something we will always have to deal with but luckily he is on the lower level on those ones and is not 'very sensitive' to them. The foods are Eggs, Milk and Peanuts. It was a shocking discovery since he has peanut butter sandwiches and milk almost every other day!

I haven't been too worried about the allergies, thinking it isn't too bad. Until Jamie in Dr. Jones office taught me how to use the EpiPen, 'just in case'.

(Here is Ben pretending to inject Jamie with one)

Most of his allergies are on a lower/mid level scale. Only bermuda grass is a level 5 allergy. (That is really bad) Where we live there is Bermuda grass and Bermuda grass pollen everywhere. We went to Daves baseball game on Wednesday and Ben rolled around on the grass. I knew it wasn't Bermuda grass, but had no idea what Timothy grass (which he has a level 4 allergy to) is. After 20 minutes of playing and rolling around on the grass, Ben started to scream and scratch himself all over. He even started gnawing on his arm to scratch it harder. I stood him up and tried to brush him off. I figured he was just being overly dramatic. Then I saw little hives all over his skin. We had to rush home and throw him in the bath. He is almost 5 years old and it seems like this has all happened all of a sudden. It is a 'bad year' for allergies, but I wonder how often Ben was whinny or complaining of a tummy ache and we just brushed it off thinking he didn't want to go to bed-or was just 'wild Ben'.

Poor third child.