milk challenge at home.

[stottiecake]

please tell me if you think this sounds ok to you. at my ds' last allergy test where the skin pricked revealed that there has been no change in the severity of his allergy the consultant and dietician told me i now need to start giving him biscuits with baked in milk - tho' way down the ingredients list. not sure if I'm being over sensitive about it but i don't feel happy about doing this. they said start with a crumb, observe and then give a bit more. the idea is to try to get him to tolerate it through exposure. but i just think it sounds a bit adhoc and unscientific ifyswim. i would be happier if i knew others had done this and it was a tried and tested method. has anyone done this with their dc? we carry an epi-pen for him because his last reaction was so severe.

I'm very surprised they've asked you to expose at home when your last reaction required the epi-pen. In this case, the exposure should be done at hospital.

If I were you, I wouldn't do it at home. Which hospital are you with? I would change to a different hospital/consultant. Similar thing happened to me and I asked GP for a referral to a different allergy clinic further away.

they did say if i felt uncomfortable about it i could arrange to do it in hospital but they were quite pushy about me doing it at home. if we did it in hospital what would that mean? going in every day to try one crumb and then the next to try another? they say he shows no sign of growing out of it and we must try this. it feels very disorganised. i would be happy to do a weeks worth of planned exposures with someone monitoring. but not this it seems wrong. we are in harrogate. i will look into seeing someone else.

thanks for replying

We were advised to do this, but I baked my own biscuits. Pead said to start with 1/2tsp milk in whole batch (made 24 biscuits) give one every day, if still not reacting increase to 1tsp etc. if reacts, go back a step until no reaction.
Sadly we reacted to first stage, so I stopped it.

This is what we have been told to do and to continue with it! After a slow start, doing it just 3 times a week my 2 year old can now manage half a malted milk biscuit a day.

a food challenge in a hospital would involve something like this: tape a small piece of the allergen onto the inside of an arm, wait half an hour and check for reaction. If there is one the challenge stops, if not the food should be rubbed on the lips before waiting half an hour. If no reaction then eat a small piece and then wait. keep increasing the amount eaten, waiting each time for a reaction.

The hospital may put in a cannula first in case they need to get meds in quick and they will take observations all the way through the challenge.

how old is your ds by the way? my dd is 7.5 years old and our hospital have no plans to challenge her yet as her blood test results are still too high

hi! he is 6 in november. i feel un comfortable because it seems so random - give him a bit, give him a bit more, give him a bit more until...? until he reacts I suppose the challenge described above sounds more like i would expect - especially as he is not showing any signs if growing out of it.

I would definitely not try it at home then. It's a pain having to avoid dairy especially as dd is getting older but we generally manage without it. I'm not in a hurry to test her just yet.

unless there is a reason why your team want to challenge your ds (weight gain issues for example) then I would stand your ground on a home challenge.

ps we also have an epipen having had 2 nasty reactions in the past

his weight is fine and he's growing really well. i feel a bit under pressure because it's dr telling me to do it - who am i to challenge him? but the fact remains it isn't sitting right with me. hmm.

that last sentence is a bit rubbish

I think you need to trust your instincts on this one, you are obviously uncomfortable doing it. I'd call back and tell them you aren't comfortable doing this at home and would prefer to do it at hospital. Perhaps when they do it in hospital they give bigger amounts than a crum to start of with because they have all the right equipment and expertise to hand should a reaction occur. I doubt you'd go in and give a crumb a day.