Hives - the Saga continues

Daniel did NOT get a vitamin last night and he did NOT get hives last night. It was a small step towards victory.

This afternoon/evening, Daniel was bawling (it was quite attractive and pleasant to experience) because his jaw was hurting. Twenty minutes after I gave him some children's liquid ibuprofen, he had hives. Are you just as outraged as I was? I think I hear some of your groans.

I compared the inactive ingredients on both bottles. They both had FD&C yellow #6! (That's all they had in common.) But then I got to thinking that I'd given him children's Motrin on the way to his TMJ appt. on Wednesday and he didn't get hives from that. And that's when I remembered that he'd had hives just around his left eye. It was a different place than what we'd dealt with before. I originally thought he'd gotten splashed with something at his appt. I looked at that bottle. It didn't have yellow #6, but it did have yellow #10 as well as another color.

So I was convinced that it was the food dyes. Now what? Why now? What do we do? I checked with the clinic and the doctor I needed was in tonight, so we drove in. I gave him a brief history and my theory.

As it turns out, he doesn't really care much about the dyes at the moment. He says we need first to try to "turn off" whatever is reacting to the dyes (or whatever it really is). So the course of treatment for now is to give him 1 tsp of Zyrtec every day for a month (to try to override his allergic response) with added Benadryl if he actually gets hives despite the Zyrtec. If the month ends and the hives don't, we move on to more specific measures...whatever those are.

That's probably when we'll have contact with an allergist. The doctor wasn't sure there was an allergy test for specific dyes. Of course, I have no idea.

With the jaw pain that he was very vocal about and the hives that resulted from the medicine, Daniel has been center stage most of the day. As soon as we decided to take him to the doctor tonight, he was all cheery smiles and pep. Is this kid so starved for attention that something like this turns him into the best of personalities? Am I not meeting his needs?

I remember LOVING the individual attention I would get in elementary school when I got sick. I even created reasons to go to the nurse's office. (Are there any schools out there that even have nurse's offices anymore?) I don't think I was deprived attention at home, but the extra stuff still fed me in some way. Daniel is following in my footsteps already! What a special boy.

VITAMINS!

I think we've discovered the source of the problem with Daniel's hives.

I'll tell you right now, it isn't the laundry detergent. He broke out in hives tonight after going to bed, which is when he usually comes to us. He'd changed his shirt (because he got it wet) and put on a newly laundered one. So I know it wasn't the shirt.

I was trying to figure out why he keeps breaking out at night. Then I thought of the vitamins the kids get each night on their way to bed. I bought new vitamins at Albertson's two days after getting the new washer. They would have gotten their first dose of these the next night. I think that's the night Chad mentioned Daniel's hives.

There are some nights we skip/forget vitamins. Daniel does go some nights without problems. We don't take vitamins with us when we travel. Daniel didn't get hives the night we were visiting Grandma.

Now we just have to wait 4 or 5 nights to know for sure. Hopefully, we're on to something here. It's much cheaper to stop buying vitamins than it is to buy fancy schmancy laundry detergent. Though I do lament the time spent doing laundry today. Those are some CLEAN clothes!

H-I-V-E-S spells Trouble

We are STILL struggling with Daniel's hives. A very perceptive friend pointed out to me that the trouble might be the new laundry detergent we started using when we got the new washer. She may be right! It was within the few days surrounding the arrival of the washer that Daniel started having problems. We just aren't exactly sure if the hives started before or after the washer was installed.

So I stopped giving Daniel the prescribed steroids after 3 days to try to solve the problem through the laundry. I didn't want to give him medication while he was still exposed to whatever irritant we were dealing with!

Unfortunately, I'm working with a 9-year-old boy and it's been hard to make sure that ALL the clothes he's wearing are clothes that have been washed in the right detergent. Every time he's broken out, there's been some question about something he's had on.

At first I thought the offender was the dye in one of the detergents we'd been trying out. But when the hives wouldn't go away, I thought it might be the perfume. While I washed Daniel's clothes separately from the others, I would mix them in the baskets.

Yesterday, I bought a dye and perfume free Tide liquid made especially for high efficiency washers. You can safely assume I didn't find it in the bargain bin! Since then, I have washed EVERYTHING in Daniel's drawers, the clean clothes not put away and the dirty ones in a pile. I have also stripped his bed, vacuumed his mattress and washed all his bedding. I even washed a jacket I found on the floor. Then I washed Nathan's dirty clothes. So the only things I haven't washed are the towels (those are next), Nathan's bedding, the clothes hanging in the closet and Nathan's clean clothes.

Where do I stop being "safe" and start being "obsessed"? Should I pull down the valances in their room and wash those, too? He does have a dust allergy (though it's never manifested itself in hives) and those things have been hanging there since before we moved in.

I wish the hives would break out in a particular pattern and spell out the source of the problem for me. Something similar to the "SOS" marooned travelers make with rocks on a sandy beach is what I'm picturing. Is that really too much to ask for?

If this marathon of laundry doesn't do the trick, and doesn't kill me, I'll have to call the doctor and ask him if I should continue the steroids (4 days left) or make an appointment with him. Heck, I already know what he's going to say to that! I'm thankful that we had Zyrtec in our food storage supplies.

HIVES!

Daniel can't seem to catch a break. First it's a summer-long jaw pain that ends up being TMJ. Next, he learns he's getting fitted with braces two days before Christmas. It was related to the TMJ problem and so made things better in the long run, but still!

Now Daniel is suffering from hives. He's had them close to two weeks. We finally took him on Wednesday night to have them looked at. The PA (same one who didn't think to check for Sarah's sore throat - I'm possibly holding a grudge about that) put him on some kind of steroid to try to get rid of whatever is in his body causing him problems. After a week of steroids, we're supposed to see the official Doctor if the hives come back.

Well, we couldn't pick up the prescription Wednesday night. All day Thursday, Daniel didn't have a problem. I thought we'd had another miraculous healing. (You know how your kids are deathly ill until the moment you bring them to the doctor? Then you just look like either a nervous parent or someone shouting out for attention.) When it came down to 30 minutes left to get to the pharmacy that evening, I decided to hold off. After all, I don't want to buy any medicine that we don't need! (That kind of spending should be saved for fabric sales.)

I picked up the boys from school for an impromptu run to the mall and asked Daniel if his hives had returned. Nope. Until I got a look at him in the store. Yep. By the time we got home that evening, he was crying and writhing from itching insanity. They're covering him head to toe...literally. So we picked up the steroid Rx on the way home. He's now had it 3 days. So far, the hives are still there.

What is it with this kid's luck? And why is it that we have the types of adventures that cost money? If these hives don't go away, we may have to do some testing. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. Medical testing is never free...unless you're a cadaver. Daniel is very much alive.

Whoa! She's out of control

Our digital scrapbooking group had a challenge to create a Top Ten page. Originally, I couldn't think of which person I would focus on so I created the top ten smiles page.

Well, after seeing every one's cute pages, I decided to do one for everyone in the family. As you can see, it got a bit out of control. But they're done! :)

I do have a family and life outside of the hours I've been sitting at the computer. We're still trying to get better around here.

Nathan's fever is gone. Leah complains that her tummy hurts sometimes, but it's hard to tell when the symptoms are real with her. Rebekah's nose is getting better...it's not so fluid.

On the other hand, Daniel still has a fever today. I don't think he had one yesterday. I was glad because he had an appointment with an allergist that we were lucky to get. The next appt. available was at the end of the month.

The good news is that he isn't allergic to any foods. He does have some allergies, which explains his coughing at night (all summer) and his habit to run his palm up the end of his nose. He is allergic to cats, some grasses, tobacco, dust, seasonal mold, and dogs. They didn't test for other animals. He's probably allergic to the rabbits outside as well. They tested for 80 things @ $7.50 a test!!! Let's hope that insurance company pays up. I'm still reeling from the price of a month of Singulair.

Even so, we're having a hard time putting the kittens out of the house. I did bathe them. There is a HEPA filter in the boys' room and their door is shut. There is a second filter downstairs. The Kirby vacuum is supposed to be really good for fighting allergies, but I'm not convinced it's anything more than a sales trick. I guess I'll have to be better about dusting the house. *sigh*

Between the new medicine and being sick, Daniel is very sleepy and not hungry. But, there has been less fighting today! (Every cloud has a silver lining.)

Not an allergy

I think I'm relieved that I don't have to figure out what Daniel is allergic to anymore. Instead I'm trying not to feel too itchy. It turns out that we have a case of Fifth Disease. Apparently, we have nothing to worry about, unless any of us are pregnant. No one here is, and I hope no one we were around is. It shouldn't be more than 5-6 weeks of rashes. (Is that all?) Luckily, it's the type of thing that you usually only get once. Here is what Daniel looked like last week. Pretty, isn't it?

Cousins...we have how many?

Now that we are done with holiday traveling and travailing, I can take a minute to immortalize it all.

On the day after Christmas we left to visit family 4 1/2 hours away. That's 14 cousins in one Big Bang! I'll bet you've never even heard that version of the "theory!" There was so much commotion that I didn't even really see my kids. They just got swallowed up. I think they enjoyed themselves and were adequately worn out by the time we left. They got to go swimming, watch a ton of movies and played with a whole different set of toys.

We also learned that Daniel is allergic to something during the trip. It would be really nice if I knew WHAT it was that turned him bright red on his cheeks and pink-splotchy over the rest of his body (he was affected head to toe...still has some rash left on his wrists and feet). The mostly likely culprit? Cheese. Either an aged cheese or some canned nacho cheese. I'm trying to get the desire to try the foods again and see what happens. Maybe that's a good Spring Break activity so we don't scare the other kids at school.

So we returned from that trip on Saturday (31 Dec) and then took another car trip to visit the other set of cousins 3 hours away, in a different direction this weekend. There are only 8 cousins there. We went for the first cousin baptism in that side of the family. Coincidentally, there were two baptisms of cousins happening where we'd just been. Tis the Season!

The kids got to play more and watch more TV and ride in the car again (Rebekah and Leah are not good in the car at all). So far, no allergic reactions! *WHEW!* We love to visit cousins, but love to be home again and back to "normal."

So it appears that we have 22 cousins (with 4 more siblings yet to have any children). Is that all? I swear it seemed way more than that in the moment!