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Wheat is sweet*

A few months ago we went to a new allergist (apparently one of the best pediatric allergists in the region) and he told us that instead of having gotten new allergies to soy and barley, as seemed indicated by the tests we had gotten back in August, Amanda was not allergic to soy, likely not allergic to barley, and had likely outgrown her allergy to wheat. (He also said that she was likely not allergic to tree nuts, but that it wasn't worth trying to find some non-peanut-contaminated tree nuts to test this out.)

The way they test this is to bring the child into the clinic, feed her a previously disallowed food, and watch what happens. I can't tell you how trying it was to give Amanda something that we had been studiously avoiding for more than two years, and watch anxiously as we waited for something to happen... Fortunately, nothing at all happened. We gave her 4 graham crackers over about 2 hours, and she had no reaction at all, other than wanting to eat more graham crackers.

So now Amanda can eat wheat again. (If you remember my post about the flour table at school, it seems that it is possible for someone to have a skin reaction to a substance while not technically being allergic to it...I admit that I am still a little confused about this). She loves graham crackers and pretzels. She's not so impressed with bread or flour tortillas. The wheat flour biscuits (with rice milk and margarine) were absolutely fantastic. We keep finding new things that she can eat. She likes the vegan chocolate cake her aunt made for Luke's birthday.

It's a bit odd, though: we haven't fully moved beyond the no-wheat phase of our lives. I still make the oat flour biscuits that we like a lot, we still make "gluten free pancakes" (although that will fall by the wayside as soon as we run out of the mix).

Another complication is that we have to read many more labels. It is obvious that a hot dog bun has wheat in it, it is not obvious whether it has egg or milk in it. The "Shredded oats" cereal has barley (still a no-no) while the "Shredded spoonfuls" is safe.

Still, getting over an allergy is a good sign: we test for the barley allergy this week, and next August we'll see if she's making any progress on getting over the dairy, egg or nut allergies. We expect that she'll eventually get over the first two, and maybe (if we're lucky) the peanut allergy as well. The truth is, though, that we don't really fully understand much about allergies in general, and any specific case is hard to predict.

*This title reminds me that I am amazed that anyone learns to spell...

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