Good news re: asthma. Since they schooled me last time on how to properly administer the mask/chamber with her Flovent, her Albuteral use has gone down significantly. I SWEAR, we were taught incorrectly when she was in the hospital. Even Dan remembers being taught something different. The CORRECT way to administer any inhaled med is to make sure the mask is in place, and THEN press down to release the med. Prior to the first allergist appt, we were releasing the med and THEN placing on her face, so she wasn't getting the full dose. Dr B was really pleased with the change this made.
Re: the hives, we are still looking for answers. After having a discussion about my unofficial findings (i.e., things that I believe increase the chance of hives), he only wanted to test her for berries. THe only actual test they had was for strawberries, for which it's been confirmed she does NOT have an allergy.
It gets trickier now, as the dr is taking my theory of a red dye allergy and putting a plan in place. He wants her to be completely free of all foods with red dye for a month, and see what happens. This includes medicines, toothpaste, etc. I freaked a bit at first, thinking this would be REALLY hard, because red dye is in SO many things. After going home and reading some labels, she actually doesn't eat that much that contains red dye. I found this great list of foods here. It gives me hope that she can still have little kid snacks:) http://reddyefree.blogspot.com/p/products-without-artificial-colors_10.html
In addition to cutting out the red dye, I will start logging EVERYTHING she eats.
He wants us to see a dermatologist as well, to rule out any of the "hives" being from excema. I don't think they are, but am happy to do this if it means we come closer to an answer for her.
Additionally, she's to start taking Singul.air and Zan.tac. I honestly didn't understand his reasoning behind using the Zan.tac, but was too tired to really ask for a decent, lay person, explanation.
Finally, he ordered a TON of blood tests. He is extremely doubtful there is any auto-immune issue going on, but like with derm, wants to rule it out. All test results should be back by Tuesday, but some were back this morning. Those initial results came back with no thyroid issues, CBC was good, ESR was normal. There was a metabolic level that came back slightly elevated, so the dr now wants a complete metabolic panel completed. Hopefully this increased level was caused by dehydration, so I'm under strict orders to fill her with fluids prior to her blood draw next week. The nurse said the dr wasn't necessarily suspicious of anything beyond dehydration, but because it did come back slightly elevated, he wants to take a closer look.
Here are two pics from this AM. I took them with phone, which explains the crappiness of the quality.
Yes, Sophie still sleeps with us. Connor has proven to be our early riser. Luckily, this AM I was able to get him out of his crib (without waking Avery), and back to sleep in our bed. Thank goodness for a king size bed.
Not more than 60 seconds later though, he popped over and gave me his good morning smile:)
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