RAST test on my 18mth old. What exactly do they do?

[2manychips]

Sorry if this has been asked before..
I just wondered how they do it and how your dc's coped. I'm a bit scared!

my dd has one at the same age, they just took a small amount of blood from her thumb and sent it off for testing. Pretty sure thats the test they were doing, looking specifically for coco, dairy, caffine, bee and soemthing else.

When ds1 had one recently they pricked his thumb, wiped some stuff (technical term ) on it to stop the blood clotting too soon and squeezed some drops out. Took all of 30 seconds. He did whimper and moan a bit but more cause he feels it is expected than any pain (he was 2.8 at the time). When he had it done at 1 year he barely noticed.

Then they get a sticker and you praise them to the roof and spend the day telling all and sundry how brave they've been .

That sounds like a better idea for wee ones.

My ds had blood taken from the back of his hand when he was 14 months. They had put on "magic" gel to numb it (we had to wait about 40 mins for it to take effect) and then it turned out that they couldn't find anywhere within the numbed area that they could get a vein. He didn't cry straight away, but they were having trouble getting any blood so had to try several sites which would distress anyone I think!!

He then got more blood taken, again from the back of his hand when he was 2.5 and this time I told them not to bother with the magic gel after what had happened the time before.

They were digging around for a while to get blood, and he was quite upset, but then a lady who's job it is to distract the kids came and blew bubbles for him while they finished off getting the sample. Then he got stickers and a little toy and lots of praise.

I would sumarise it by saying that it was not very pleasant for anyone, but neccessary and over fairly quickly.

I hope your LO is fine and they use the thumb method. It sounds easier all round!

Thanks everyone, really hope its the thumb prick one too,the receptionist said it should only take 10 mins so I'm optimistic(I'm needle phobic)Sounds like I'll be more distressed than dd. She said it could be up to 6wks for result though-thats not great!