Alternaria

I had never heard of Alternaria until last week when my son's skin prick test showed positive to it, and actually it was his worse showing allergy (that and dogs.)  According to Wikipedia, Alternaria is a genus of ascomycete fungi. Alternaria species are known as major plant pathogens. They are also common allergens in humans, growing indoors and causing hay fever or hypersensitivity reactions that sometimes lead to asthma.

Here's an excerpt from a research article on Alternaria:

“The Arizona Respiratory Center has determined that sensitivity to Alternaria spores is the single factor that most significantly correlates with the onset of childhood asthma in the Tucson area,” Pryor says. “After following childhood cases for over 20 years, this was one of the findings that really piqued their interest in Alternaria.”

Alternaria is one of the most common fungi worldwide, found literally everywhere, both indoors and outdoors. It produces long chains of spores that are easily dispersed through the air. “There is really no way to get away from it— it can live almost anywhere..."

So with that, we treated for Alternaria today.

Preparing for Kindergarten

Monday is my son's first day of Kindergarten!  I'm a little anxious given his medical history, but he's doing much these days which brings me some relief.  After talking with his doctor as to how to handle the peanut allergy, I then met with his new teacher.  The school is very accommodating to peanut allergies and already has safeguards in place such as a peanut free lunch table and hand washing after lunch.  His classroom will also be peanut free, and all parents have been made aware.

There's a great Food Allergy Action Plan form that the doctor completed for me that I will be providing the school with, in addition as to making copies to keep in my son's emergency packs.  An emergency pack will also be kept in the office and in his teacher's desk.  This kit contains epipens, benedryl, and ventolin.  In addition, the school has asked that I type up a profile sheet on my son that will be shared with all staff so that they are aware of his conditions.

On the NAET front, my husband has always had an itchy throat reaction to cantaloupe. Just the other day he ate some and not only did his mouth itch, but his arms, too. I gave him a home treatment, and two days later he tried cantaloupe again (he ate 1/4 of the melon.)  Magically, there was no reaction at all from what he told me.  So weird.

My son has treated for herbicides, late summer weeds in our area, and a bioflavonoid called rutin that I use to take a lot of before I had him.  Rutin is in his new supplement, and since he showed weak he was treated for it.  I want to work on latex, insect stings, pesticides, and then move onto dioxins.

Skin Test Today

Following up on our allergist visit last week, my son had a skin test done today.  He had 4 panels: A) Trees/Grasses; B) Weeds; C)  Other environmentals including dust mites, dog, cat, etc; D) Food (beef, milk, chicken, egg, corn, wheat, soybean, peanut); and some tree nuts:  walnut, almond, pecan, and cashew.

So what did I learn?  Once again reaction trumps the tests.  To my amazement there was absolutely zero reaction to the peanut/tree nuts.  Actually out of all the foods, only egg showed a very mild reaction (the nurse wasn't even going to mark it, but I was certain I saw a small welt.)  His trouble spots were shown to be ragweed, a fungi called alternaria (more on that in a later post), a tree called red top, dust mites, and dog.  I knew dog would be a problem after my kid was licked on the arm by a dog over the weekend and it looked like he put his arm in a hornets nest.  Fortunately the old emergency pack with benedryl did the trick.

So what to do from here?  The peanuts are still a concern, especially since the RAST blood test shows a level 6 reaction.  Because of that, we're not going to challenge any time soon and we're to stay away from all nuts and continue to carry the epipen.  There are some new tests that we could look into in the future.  One being "you know peanut test" that was FDA approved a month ago.  It's a blood test that not many labs are doing right now that IDs which peanut proteins are triggering the reaction.  There's a genetic microbiology test that can be done which shows peanut proteins 1-3 that cause a reaction and 4-6 that relate to a positive test (but no reaction, if I understood the doctor correctly.)  The doc ruled out immunocap as there's a 5-10% change of anaphylaxis which he says is too much of a risk.  He did say that due to the negative skin test my son is now is the" 20% chance of out growing his peanut allergy" category.

As for NAET, our last treatment was for "Immune Modulator" which deals with aligning the misaligned T-cells of the immune system.  When the T1 cells over power the T2 cells the immune system goes into overdrive and overreacts, causing inflammation resulting in various ailments like asthma and eczema.

My son has had soy sauce a handful of times in his stir-fry and has done fabulously.  Prior to NAET he was breaking out in huge hives and his skin would turn thick and scaly.  We also just bought a new supplement to try at the recommendation of our Ped, it's called NeuroProtek by Algonot.  The doc was pretty excited about this one as he was seeing positive results with some of his autistic patients.  It's all natural containing flavonoids rutin, luteolin, and quercetin that's suppose to reduce symptoms of gut and brain inflammation, and nerve and tissue damage.

Wheat Again

We've gone back to revisit wheat.  It's clear that the kid can handle wheat in small amounts, but has difficulty with his skin after eating more than a cookie or something small.  Over the last couple of weeks we've done an additional 5 treatments for wheat with various combinations:  wheat w/yeast, wheat w/ DNA, wheat w/RNA, wheat w/DNA,RNA, Base, and wheat w/trypsin (a digestive enzyme.)  Don't get me wrong, I am frustrated at the lack of quick results and having to re-treat wheat so many times.  But I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet as I keep reminding myself of all the foods we've gotten back because of NAET:  tomato, yogurt, oats, chickpeas, soy, citrus, pork and I'm sure there's more that escape my mind right now.

We also had a good visit with the allergist.  I'm happy to report that it's been one year since any asthma issues!!!  I think NAET and vitamin D have a lot to do with that.   The doctor is taking my son off his daily asthma meds (flovent) for a 2 week trial to see how he does before school starts.  Speaking of which, I will have a kindergartner is about 2 weeks!  My main purpose for the allergist visit was to get help with a medical plan before starting school.  The nut allergy still has me worried and I want the doctor's input as to how to address it.  Next week we're going in for a skin prick test and then we'll be able to come up with a plan from there.