Last week I took Son-S to the allergist.  The allergist did a skin test for his usually allergens: dairy, eggs, bananas, walnuts, and pecans, plus she also tested for dust and some moulds.  The following day I took Son-S to have blood drawn so that a CAP RAST allergy test could be done.  He’s never had a CAP RAST test done so I’m very curious to see what his IgE levels are.

As far as Son-S’s egg allergy goes, he’s never had a severe reaction.  He has tolerated a bit of egg in baked goods before but we thought that it might be causing some eczema so we had been avoiding it altogether.  Since the chances of outgrowing an egg allergy are pretty good (our allergist told us that 80-90 % grow out of it) and he’s never had a severe reaction to egg, we’ve been told to slowly introduce egg into his diet.

Eggs in baked goods are the way to start introducing them because (a) one egg in a batch of cookies isn’t very much egg – not like having a fried egg and (b) because when an egg is cooked one of the two allergic components is considerably modified by heat such that it can be tolerated by some people.

So the day after Son-S had his skin test, the same day I took him for the blood test, I baked cookies with an egg.  I made Peanut Butter cookies, much like the ones I tried to make here, but this time I used an egg (and the cookies turned out much better!).  It is the recipe straight of the back of the Kraft Peanut Butter jar:

  • 1 cup peanut butter
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1 egg

Mix until well-blended.  Roll into 24 balls, press down with a fork.  Bake 15 minutes in oven preheated to 325° on an ungreased baking sheet.

I made a couple of small cookies and Son-S was dying to try them.  He watched me make them so he knew there was an egg in them; which I realize now probably wasn’t the best idea.  Anyway, he had a small cookie and seemed perfectly fine.  He had another little piece of a cookie a little while later.  He seemed fine.

Later that afternoon we went up to the hospital so that they could draw blood for the CAP RAST test.  Just before we left Son-S started complaining of a sore tummy.  Uh oh.  I check him out all over.  There were no hives, no rash, no redness, nothing.  But he kept complaining about his tummy.  The whole drive there the poor boy was whining and complaining about his sore tummy.  I started to feel really bad…what was I thinking?  Why did I give him so much?  I should have waited for a day that we were going to be home all day. I should have given him just a tiny piece of cookie…maybe I shouldn’t have done it at all…oh, the guilt.  At one point when we were in the van Son-S whined to me “I don’t ever want to eat that again!”  That put me over the edge.  I was bawling!  “Oh honey, you don’t have to eat it anymore,” I cried.  Oh, the guilt.

Son-S complained on and off about his tummy for the next few hours.  He had the blood drawn and we went home.

The funny thing is, my tummy hadn’t been feeling all that well.  It wasn’t that bad, it was subtle really.  I was so wrapped up in keeping an eye on Son-S and the guilt I was feeling that I barely noticed.  Later on that day Baby-M (who’d also had a cookie or two) had a really gross diaper – I’ll spare you the gory details but let’s just say it was out of the ordinary.  Baby-M clearly had some tummy upset too.

And then I started thinking…hmmm.  That’s a funny coincidence.  Uuuh…wait a second.  I wonder how old those eggs were.  We rarely use eggs and I’d used the last egg in the carton, so I started thinking that they might have been in the fridge for a while.  I went and dug out the empty egg carton from the recycling.  The best before date stamped on the egg carton was May 25th!  AAAK!  No wonder!  Later that day when my husband came home I told him the whole story.  Not wanting to take my word for it he insisted on trying a cookie for himself.  Sure enough, a short time later his tummy wasn’t feeling so well.

A couple of days later, with a fresh batch of eggs, I made the cookies again.  Not surprisingly Son-S wouldn’t go near them.  I don’t blame him at all.  I guess we’ve scared him to death about his allergies.  The poor kid.

I’ll have to find something else to sneak an egg into and try again.