The first peanut day

I recently did a post about Sweetheart eating her very first peanut ever, but I thought I should go back in time a little bit and explain what is going on and what we are doing. 

We have been so very blessed. When Sweetheart was diagnosed with a peanut allergy, it was as if we had just been handed, well, I don't want to say a death sentence, but it was something permanent and dangerous that would follow her for her entire life. We had to change everything. We cleared out our pantry and learned to be very vocal and insistent that other people be careful enough with what they were eating to keep our daughter safe.

And even then, there were instances that we couldn't expect, things that we didn't even know to consider. When her big sister flew in to visit, we found out the hard way that we had to ask her not to eat the peanut packets they hand out on the airplane. We learned that you can't drive past Five Guys Burgers and Fries, or the delicious smell of the French fries fried in peanut oil will make Sweetheart's eyes water and her face get rashy. It changed everything.

And it was permanent. There was nothing we could do to change it, so we all just had to learn to live this way. And then we heard about a treatment called oral immunosuppressive therapy, and we had a glimmer of hope that just maybe she had a chance at a normal life.

Our doctor is Dr. Jones at Rocky Mountain Allergy in Layton, Utah. Oral immunotherapy, or OIT, involves giving the allergic person very small, even microscopic doses of the thing that they are allergic to, and then gradually increasing that dose until the body learns that the substance is okay. She started out on day one being given ever increasing doses of a peanut solution that looked and smelled like Kool-Aid.

After that first very long day, they sent us home with a liquid that we were to give her about every 12 hours. Ever since, we have gone back once a week to have her dose increased, and to have her monitored for an hour after the new dose to make sure she is doing fine. We went from ever increasing doses of the liquid to a powder that we would mix into applesauce, to now having a full peanut. This treatment is nothing short of miraculous! 

 She is doing so well with the treatment, and should be able to eat as many peanuts as she wants within just a few short months. After the treatment is over, she will be on a maintenance dose of 8 peanuts per day for the rest of her life in order to keep her immunity.

Miracles upon miracles, we are so blessed!