The results are in...

Peanut's allergy test results that is. They drew blood on Tuesday testing for an allergies to milk, eggs, nuts, wheat, dogs and/or cats. The nurse called me back today to let me know that everything came back negative except he does have a mild milk allergy. It isn't severe and he may be at the stages of outgrowing it. We should limit his plain milk intake to no more than one sippy cup a day, substituting soy or rice milk in his other sippies. He can have baked goods with milk, he can have cheese and yogurt but we do need to limit his intake of ice cream due to the heavy amounts of milk and cream.

So, Peanut's allergy is very mild. He has no rash, no eczema, no diarrhea and no apparent tummy aches. However, I think we all remember how sick Peanut was this last winter. {He was doing daily breathing treatments. He had bronchitis several times and was diagnosed with "reactive airway disease". Basically when he gets sick, it's hard for his body to get better....colds easily settle into his lungs and airway, thus causing wheezing, coughing and trouble breathing. } Well as it turns out SOME kids with milk allergies present their symptoms via the respiratory tract. "Symptoms can range from a runny nose, itchy, watery eyes, and sneezing to the triggering of asthma with coughing and wheezing" (info found here). When a kid has a milk allergy (which is not the same as a lactose intolerance) they body fights the proteins found in milk; their immune system is hard at work attacking those proteins.

So it's logical that Peanut got ''so'' sick last winter, knowing now that he has/had a milk allergy. We quit breastfeeding in September. He was on formula for about 2 months, then we switched to whole milk (December-ish). By February he got a cold that lead to breathing treatments. We did breathing treatments on and off (although more often than not) until MAY trying to get his wheezing/coughing under control. Turns out that his body was already hard at work dealing with the milk proteins, then he got sick on top of that and his little immune system just couldn't keep up!

Hopefully now that we know the problem, and we know that he is already at the age/stage of outgrowing it, this winter will go much smoother!