Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Allergy Update

Today was Libby's allergy appointment in Frisco. It blew me away how they did the testing and the elimination. They hooked a blood pressure like cuff around her ankle. Because she is too small to perform the muscle testing on her, they tested through me. She is hooked up to a computer through the cuff. She and I have to have skin to skin contact. The doctor clicks on an allergen name on the computer. It sends a signal through the cuff to me and then she muscle tests me. If my arm goes down upon light pushing then an allergy is present, if not then no allergy is present. My arm definitely went down when she tested for things I already knew she was allergic to.

After she tested for food and seasonal allergies then she focused on one allergy to eliminate. She did dust today. She wanted to eliminate the sugar but then Libby couldn't eat for two hours afterward. We hadn't had lunch yet so I knew she would be starving by 2:30 so she opted for dust. When eliminating a food allergy you have to go in order and since sugar is in most everything you eat, it has to be the first to go. It will be treated next time though.

Back to the elimination part. They narrowed down the dust allergy to its components such as dust mites, dust particles, etc. She was allergic to dust mites. They even tested to see what organs the allergy is affecting and how deep it goes. For instance, it was affecting her skin and lungs and went all the way to the molecular level. So it was deep. The lungs and skin make sense since she has congestion and eczema. She ran a massage like tool up and down her spine several times which sends a signal to the brain to not think of dust as an invader. After the elimination she retested the dust allergy and it showed it was gone. There is a two hour window after the procedure that you can't come into contact with the allergen or treatment won 't be effective. When we go back she will test for it again to make sure the treatment worked.

Pray it did otherwise we have to pay for a re-treatment. The doctor said 80% don't have to have re-treatment so maybe we won't fall into the 20% category. We go again next Tuesday for the sugar elimination and it goes from there until we can't afford anymore. It's pretty costly so if we had all of them removed we would go broke real quick. They also found out she is allergic to cats, weeds, and grasses.

Thank you for praying for us. I felt very comfortable that it went well and was very impressed with the treatment.

On a side note, my day didn't start so well. While backing out of my mom's driveway, I backed over their aged golden retriever which used to be our dog years ago. We didn't think she was hurt bad as she hobbled off. Amy took her to the vet while we were gone and they had to put her to sleep. Needless to say, I felt horrible and so guilty. She couldn't hear good anyway and I guess she didn't hear me backing up and I didn't see her. I cried. I tried to dry it up before I went in to the doctor. I hope it wasn't obvious. Anyways, my day wasn't too good. Why me? I loved Sandy. She was a good dog, but very old. Maybe tomorrow will go better.

1 comments:

Wendy said...

Oh Jen, I'm so very sorry about the dog incident. That's so hard. I'll pray for your broken heart to be healed.

Libby's treatments sounds very strange my friend, but who cares if it works, right?!

Sorry I couldn't call tonight. I planned to read to the girls after life group and really needed to stick to the plan since we're behind in our read alouds. I was really tempted to call you...sorry I couldn't.

Talk to you soon,