Allergies & Asthma

Faith had an appointment today with an allergy and asthma specialist. They did some tests on her and were able to narrow her allergy down drastically. Out of 50 allergens she was tested for, she only had a reaction to one of them!! This particular allergen is from plantain leaves. These are perrenial and die out in the winter, but grow back in mid spring. Unfortunately, this is something we can't keep Faith away from, especially living out in the country, so she will stay on her allergy meds for now. She was also officially diagnosed with asthma today. The good news is that it isn't allergy related asthma, so her doctor is confident that she will outgrow it in 5 to 10 years. He prescribed her an emergency inhaler for when it is needed. She will stay on her three current medications and add only this inhaler when needed. I was able to talk him out of putting her on a daily inhaler, because she is already on singulair and I felt that double medicating was too much. We will follow up with the doctor next month and he will evaluate her again. We are hoping that he can take her off of some of her medication at that time. He made a good point today after we stressed our concern of her being on so many medications. He said just think of it like this..."Everything you are giving her is for her nose and lungs and it will never effect her feet. It won't keep her from doing anything or going anywhere, it will just make breathing easier for now." So, I guess we're okay with this and we'll always do what is best for her health, but we're really praying that he'll be able to cut out some of the medication next month. Anyway, we feel great about the things we found out today. On a great note....we were very very proud of Faith today. The tests consisted of 50 very light pricks on the back 8 needles in the arm and she handled it all like a PRO! I couldn't have been more proud of her, she was such a big girl today!!

We had a great weekend visiting Sam & Susie and I'll post about it soon, I need to get my big girl into bed for the night, she's very tired.