Shots

Jared has started his allergy shots again.

We tried them when he was only 4 but it was too much for him to handle at the point, and it sent his anxiety through the roof.  He is older now, and he understands better what is going on and how much better he might be able to feel with these.  He also has been dealing more with issues, bringing on hives and the sort. He also has lots more major allergies than he did 4 years ago, so this HAS to happen.

I posted about the last allergy test here.  We have since learned that he is also allergic to some antibiotics, but there isn't anything they can do for that.

Anyway, we started on Monday on his I.T. Immunotherapy.  He has 25+ allergies in the +3 and +4 range, then there are a bunch in the lower reaction, but still a reaction present area.  This is ridiculous and we need to try to get more comfortable and his allergies a bit more under control.  Doing these shots there is no promise, but a good chance that thing will get better.  This isn't a cure by any means, but better is great.

We will go to the Dr. every Monday and Thursday morning for at least 6 months.  Then after that it will taper off to not as often once the maintenance dose it met.  He will then go to every 3-4 weeks, except during seasonal allergy time that will increase again.  This will last for 5 years, when they will talk about need to continue or not.  It is going to be a haul, but we can do it

Here he is ready to go back for his shots. 

He gets two shots each time.  One in each arm.

 

The first appointment went really well.  He got nervous which brought a few tears, but there was no fit or yelling or anything like that.  Just a few worried tears, but he did it!  He did really well.

 

Thursday we went for his second trip.  Things went great.  No worries, no tears, no nothing.  We went back, got his shots then went back out to the waiting room.  After the shot we have to stay in view of the front desk for 30 minutes due to risk of serious reaction. 

 

We pass the time by reading.  He LOVES it.  We will be blazing through series fast at this rate.

We had our timer and once it beeped we went back to the nurses station and got him checked out.  Monday there was quite a red blotch, but yesterday there was nothing.  They measure the reaction site and have him do his peak flows and send us on our way.

 

Things were good so we went home.  Aaron headed to work and we started our day.  About an hour later Jared started to complain about his right arm hurting.  I told him maybe he just need to take a nice warm shower, so he started to get ready.  After taking his shirt off I saw this. There was a big welt, red, hot and caused his arms to be really sore, stiff and hard to move.

 

Pictures don't do this justice, but his upper arm (which is usually straight and skinny) is bulged out on the top and was also red.  I called the Dr right away and we were told to come right back ASAP.

They measured his site again, drew 2 black dots ( for reference which you can kind of see in this picture) and told us what to do. He had quite a reaction to his one shot, but not the other.  His welt under the skin was larger than the biggest measuring tool they had.

 

Since he wasn't having breathing troubles they let us go.  I felt bad for the boy guy I bought him a swirly cone.  That lifted his spirits.

We medicated and iced the spot and watched for changes.  By last night this is what it looked like.  You can see the bulge is bigger, but nothing else was happening.  Breathing was still okay.

 

This morning his arm is looking better. Not as puffy and only sore if you push on the spot.  They are happy with that and so are we.  Monday's does is going to be lowered.  His little system obviously didn't handle that injection very well.  I am going to ask which allergens were given in the right arm.  I know they had broken the antigens into groups. Animals and some, and then everything else.  I am guessing this was the animal one, but I am not 100%.

 

This being said we are still cruising ahead.  I am just hoping that Jared doesn't get too worried come Monday.  He had been taking this so well this time.  I don't want this to make him take a step back.  I am sure proud of him though.