An Eggcellent Adventure

Today we went Yorkhill Children's Hospital for Blondie Boy's appointment with the allergist. A few months ago we asked our GP for a referral and after his referral we got a letter from Yorkhill saying they approved his referral and he'd be allocated an appointment later. It took just under three months from our GP's referral to his appointment today.

If you are in Glasgow, be warned, parking is an absolute nightmare around Yorkhill. We left ourselves plenty of time and luckily NotBlondeHusband only had to loop around once after dropping us off to get parked. We went to our appointment and the first thing they did before we even started waiting was check Blondie Boy's height and weight.  The scales were just a big chair which I personally thought was pretty cool. 


We got there about 20 minutes early so I was surprised that they actually saw us early. We spoke to the Doctor and explained how BB has eczema and the reactions he has had to eggs. We also told her about his penicillin allergy and she asked us other questions about how he is in general. Then we got sent upstairs to test for peanut and egg allergies.


Again we didn't wait long and a nurse came and brought us through to another room. She drew four x's on BB's arm. Two were controls: one of saline for the no response control and the other was a histamine which would be the response control. The other two were for egg and peanuts.  She dropped a droplet of each liquid next to the appropriate X and then made a "dent" into the droplet with a metal spade. She didn't break or scratch the skin, just pushed it in a bit. Blondie Boy was totally fine with all of this and then got sent out to play for 15 minutes.


The waiting room was amazing: there was a full size play house, kitchen, rocking toys, fire trucks, books, play food, musical toys--basically any toy any child could possibly want--and most impressive they all had working batteries!  I overheard an older boy getting to choose a Nintendo DS game to play while he waited, too. Blondie Boy was in heaven and played away happily while we waited. 


After the fifteen minutes were up we went back into another room and it was clear to see he had two red welts on his arm where the histamine control and the egg droplets had been. The nurse drew around the two welts in pen and then stuck a bit of clear tape on them to take a tracing and taped the tracing to a report. Blondie Boy got his arm wiped off and we headed back downstairs again.


I should say as there are a lot of different outpatient clinics running at the same time we did see some visibly sick children. Blondie Boy wasn't bothered but as a Mom I did notice it and if you have older children they might ask questions. Questions are great, but just thought I'd put that in there. I should also say every staff member we came in contact with was so friendly and smiley which was lovely.


We had another wait and then went back to see the Doctor who confirmed Blondie Boy is allergic to eggs. He's not allowed any eggs, including eggs baked or cooked in other foods, and had a prescription antihistamine in case he has any allergic reactions.  We'll have to go back when he is four to re-evaluate and it is totally possible that it is an allergy he will outgrow. Since he had no reaction to peanuts we got the okay to try peanut butter so I think a trip to Costco for American peanut butter is in order.

We didn't get much in the way of information other than a pamphlet on what to do in case he has an allergic reaction. I'm not sure what other information I was looking for, but I guess I maybe expected something a bit specific about his allergy.


I had no idea what to expect when we went in today so I thought maybe there might be another Mom out there who would benefit from knowing what happens.  So expect to see some egg-free baking recipes and if you have any I'd love to hear them! I make some mean applesauce pancakes so I'm sure I can adapt other recipes to be Blondie Boy friendly, too.