A visit to the Allergist...

We went to visit the allergist for the first time and they did a test to see if Benson is allergic to anything... I know that seems like a weird test since we've been avoiding a few things like the plague his entire life... but there is a difference in allergies and intolerance's.

Benson was diagnosed with milk/soy protein intolerance and has also shown signs of a rice intolerance. This means that his digestive systems isn't mature enough to break down the proteins found in these foods. Most of the time, intolerances are outgrown.

The test above is one which shows us if his body is allergic to anything... the section marked "A" is for allergens (such as dust, mold, pet dander, etc...) "D" is for diet (including milk, soy, fish etc...) "R" is rice and "O" is oat. The big red blotch was the control spot which shows what it would look like if he WERE allergic to any of the items tested. As you can see, he WASN'T! Yes, that's right, he wasn't allergic to one single thing! Including milk, soy or rice! Which means he will definitely grow out of this phase he's in!

The allergist recommended us giving him some milk- straight milk- and seeing if we saw any blood in his stool. We've given him one ounce the past two days, and SO FAR, SO GOOD! We've seen no signs of an adverse reaction! We'll try soy next week and he recomended waiting until two years to try rice again (which does mean no regular cheerios :( til then) So, we may very well be at the end of our crazy-freak-out-if-he-gets-a-speck-of-anything-I-haven't-cooked diet. And for that, we would be extrememly grateful! I'll keep you posted on the progress!

Here's a few pics of him trying milk for the first time in his life!

He didn't really know what to think about it... he started kinda spitting it out....

hmm... not bad!