[UPDATE] Kids Passed Food Challenges!

First of all, thanks for all of you who posted congratulatory comments and upvoted my post regarding both my sons passing food challenges (their first pass for each). I was happy to share my joy with others and am glad you shared it back with me.This post, however, is going to be a little PSA about the complications regarding food allergies.My five year old passed a fresh milk challenge, having no reaction to about 50ml of milk over the span of two hours. We were given the ok to give a small amount of milk each day—in whatever form suitable to his remaining allergies—and told to go celebrate.After the challenge, we started with very small amounts of milk, 5-10ml (a tablespoon is 15). He had some stomach cramping, but we figured he’s not used to lactose. Over the past couple of weeks, we gave him half a string cheese, and upped his quantity of milk to 30ml (2 tablespoons). Every time he had stomach cramps, but that was it.Until Sunday.Sunday we gave him 30ml for the first time, and immediately had a stomach ache. Went to the bathroom but it still hurt. Then he began projectile vomiting. After that, his eyes began turning red and itchy. He began scratching his tongue with his teeth. We gave him a full dose of Zyrtec and monitored him for a few hours. He was fine after.But wtf happened? The allergist said this does happen sometimes, and to pull fresh milk products out of his diet again. “You have to respect the reaction,” he said. And now I gave him some gluten free chip things with milk (baked) and he’s cramping again. So I may need to pull baked out too.I’m not looking for sympathy—it’s not the first time we’ve gone backwards in food tolerance. But I want people to know that allergies are incredibly complex. So when someone says “I can have baked milk”, they might be right. Or if they can tolerate very little, they might be right about that too. And I want people who throw the word “allergy” around lightly to have an idea of what we go through.1 in 13 children in the US have a food allergy; of those, 30% have more than one. 80% of dairy allergic children used to outgrow it by age 6. Now it’s more like 50%.Thanks again for reading! via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2xHelsO