Anyway we were there a while, Marcelo started getting a bit irritable as it was getting close to his 2:30 feeding. He started the irate demonstration right when they were going to do the skin test. I'm not normally that comfortable with the whole public nursing thing, but I wasn't going to let him cry hysterically during the whole procedure not to mention, he can develop a full body rash just from angry crying and then we'd never know the difference anyway. So I asserted myself and told the assistant I was going to nurse him first. She decided to test his arm as that was the only small area of skin without some degree of redness to it already. So, he didn't even notice anything was being done to him as he was blissfully nursing the whole time.
They tested him for milk, dog, cat, soy, and wheat allergies, plus the positive and negative controls. Much to my surprise he is not allergic to cats as I am. At least his eyeballs won't be turning into hard boiled pointy eggs, but he is allergic to MILK and DOGS. Well, that explains a lot since he lives off of MILK and we have two furry rodent dogs in the house. His unusual for his age allergy to dogs and the milk allergy prompted the doctor to also ban him from future consumption of eggs and nuts as a "he's most likely allergic to these as well" type of precaution.
Cutting out milk, dairy, eggs, and nuts out of my diet would pretty much leave me with nothing but water to eat seeing as I currently hold the record for most pickiest eater on the planet. Really, I got a stack of handouts with endless lists of what ingredients constitute milk including anything "butter flavored". I always thought "butter flavored" was the opposite of butter, like melted yellow plastic or something. Anyway, it looks like I'm going to be weaning him off to a hypoallergenic formula called Nutramigen which has the advantage of already being partially digested. Umm, doesn't that sound yummy. We got some samples and he refused the first couple bottles of it Ray tried to give him straight, despite the doctor's advise to mix it in gradually because HE'S NOT GOING TO LIKE IT. I haven't checked to see how much this formula costs but I would venture to guess it's the most expensive one out there as it is marketed for colicky babies with digestion problems. So I'm guessing I may be able to exchange gold for it.
Anyway, we've yet to determine what to do with the dogs as Ray would probably rather cut off his right foot than get rid of the dogs. My guess is he'd get rid of the dogs in a second if they were causing him to gauge his head full of wholes every night. But for now I guess we have to vacuum a lot more often, probably get rid of the carpet in his room, get a hepa filter and all those crazy things that sensitive allergy people have to do. It's hard to know how much of a role the dog allergy plays in his eczema anyway although the welt on his arm from dog seemed more severe than the one for the milk. We did get some more potions, a prescription for Zyrtec (we've already tried Benadryl and Atarax), some other lotiony thing and an Epipen Jr in case Sofia decides to feed him a peanut butter egg sandwich with milk and dog hair. (I'm secretly glad to have the Epipen because I've never had a bee sting and, because my reaction to mosquito bites is ridiculous and last for weeks, I'm afraid to know what will happen if I do. Although I might have a hard time jabbing myself in the leg, much less Marcelo, with a needle that's designed to go through your pants.).
It's strange how somehow I had him pegged to be this way. Maybe that's why I vacuumed like crazy, washed everything in our house, and demanded that Ray have the dogs properly bathed at PetsMart (which we never do) a couple of days before he was born. Sadly, I don't think the dogs have been bathed since. If we want to keep them, we'll probably have to hire a cleaning service and someone to come bathe them every week.
Poor little guy. I wish I could just dunk him in some magical potion and make him feel better.
This picture was taken several hours after the skin test was done so the allergic reaction had already calmed itself, but Sofia noticed immediately that someone had "drawn on Marcelo's arm with crayon" and she was very concerned about it when she alerted us to this as though some impostor had somehow caught him unattended and written all over him.
