Today we Ruthie had an allergist appointment. It has been 2 years since she was diagnosed and last week we had her peanut labs redrawn for the first time since her diagnosis. For the record, she was an EXCELLENT patient. She cried when they stuck her but she did such a good job holding still. I was SO proud of her.
I prayed for 2 things going into this appointment. 1) That her lab numbers would be lower and 2) (this is the big one) that her allergist would be receptive to us trying oral immunotherapy (OIT).
*A small aside for those who have never heard of oral immunotherapy. Pretty much the way it works is patients are given very small amounts of their allergen in the office. They then take this dose every day for a week (or 2 weeks depending on your allergist and what schedule you're on) at home. You then go back to the office and are "updosed". You do this every week or two for quite awhile. Some patients are able to get to the point where they can pass an oral food challenge and eat their allergen freely while others are only able to get to the point where they would be ok if they accidently took a bite of something with their allergen in it. The data I've looked at shows an 80-90% success rate which is amazing! Just to get to the point where we didn't have to super analyze every thing that she was eating and everything those around her were eating would be so wonderful.*
So first up: lab results. Our allergist uses the peanut component panel which analyzes which proteins the peanut binds to and can somewhat predict the severity of the response. Component 1,2 and 3 are the big severe ones and 2 has the most severe reactions. Anything under 0.1 is negative and numbers can be as high as up in the 80s. Two years ago when she was diagnosed Ruthie's 1 was 0.3 and her 2 was 1.75. Today her 1 was NEGATIVE and her 2 was 1.17. This is so GREAT! Trends are so important when looking at these numbers and to be trending down is such a relief. The allergist was very encouraged by her results. He had told me earlier in the appointment that we would repeat her skin test next year but after seeing her lab results he decided to do it in 3 months! So at the end of June we will go have that done. Last time her skin test measured a 9 so the allergist said if she is in the 3-4 range this time we can do an oral challenge!
All the lab results were exciting but the really exciting part of the appointment was at the end when I nervously asked our allergist about his thoughts on the new therapies such as OIT and Viaskin (the peanut patch). I haven't researched Viaskin much but I've done a LOT of OIT research. Allergists seem to either love OIT or be VERY against OIT. We knew that our doctor wasn't offering it currently (it's a newer therapy and as far as I know nobody in SC is doing it yet).I knew we would want to further explore the option no matter what our allergist said but I knew I would feel more comfortable with it if our allergist gave us the ok. Our allergist is 100% on board with these options and we agreed that we'd revisit the issue after her skin test in June...because we may not even need OIT or Viaskin! I knew from my research that OIT is currently being offered by a few doctors in the Raleigh/Durham area, 3 doctors in Atlanta, and 1 doctor in Charlotte. I didn't think anyone around here was doing Viaskin but the allergist said it's being done in Charleston! These are all really exciting options but even more exciting was our allergist said that he hopes that in the next year or two his office will be doing one of them! Depending on what our skin test looks like and what his timeline looks like will probably determine whether we wait and try to do it in Columbia or if we go somewhere else.
I can not adequately express to you the feelings I had when I left the appointment today. I definitely shed a few tears when I got in the car. To know that Ruthie's labs are trending down and to know that our allergist supports our treatment plan is a great feeling. All day I have felt like a weight has been lifted off my chest and for the first time in 2 years I can breathe a little easier. It feels like there is a light at the end of this road. There is a chance she could outgrow her allergy on her own and there is a chance that we could do OIT and desensitize her to peanut. I kept telling myself that the numbers didn't really matter because we now had this great option of doing OIT but really deep down the numbers DO matter. And it definitely DOES matter that our allergist is excited about the new opportunities for Ruthie and other allergy kids.
Also, I left with a prescription for an Auvi-q...yay! Auvi-q is the epipen that talks to you when you use it and tells you exactly what to do. I got one at a previous appointment and literally within a day or two they recalled all of them! I was so sad! But now they have fixed the problem and they are back on the market and are FREE!
No comments:
Post a Comment