Allergies

Well, it all began when Ella got sick in January. I thought she just had a cold, but once she would get better, she would get sick again. In February, her wheezing started. It was so loud, you didn't need a stethoscope to hear it. I could hear her in another room coughing and wheezing. So after our first doctor visit, she was prescribed medicine for the nebulizer. The medicine only seemed to work a little though. Once she got active, her lungs would flare up again. Then she got sick again. After about a week or so, she seemed to get a little better (no fever, less snot), so we went back to the doctor (this was mid March). This time she was prescribed a steroid to be mixed with the previous nebulizer medicine. Bingo! The combination worked great. I kept her on it for a week, doing treatments three times a day. But, the day I stopped her treatments, her wheezing flared up again. Back to the doctor again. We are then introduced to inhalers, toddler style. One steroid (Advair, which is one of the inhalers I use) and one fast acting (in case her wheeze flares up when we're out and about) that I keep in my purse. So instead of doing three breathing treatments a day (15-20 minutes each) and trying to keep her seated the whole time, we now use just her steroid inhaler, morning and night. And it only takes 15 seconds! The inhalers have been working wonders so far!

Fast forward to last Friday (April 8th). The kids were playing outside (like always). Daniel spots a mosquito biting her on her belly and smooshes it. It flares up a little, like any regular mosquito bite on any normal person. The next morning, her belly is so swollen in that one spot, it literally looked like she had an extra growth on her stomach! I put her in the bath (to help cool the itch) and gave her some Benadryl. After much research on the internet, I decided not to call the doc just yet. From what I was reading, it seemed to be a pretty common thing to be allergic to mosquito bites. Some websites even called toddlers having "Popeye arms" because of how swollen kid's arms would get just from a single mosquito bite. So I just kept her on Benadryl and Cortozone, and that seemed to do the trick. Her stomach looks much better now, but I guess she's allergic to mosquito bites.

Yesterday...Ella woke up from her nap close to 5pm, with hives all over her body (mainly on her legs and arms)! I call Daniel in a panic, and he first tells me to calm down and put her in the bath to cool her itch (it was obvious she had been scratching), and that he's leaving work at that moment (which luckily we only live 5 minutes from his job. Literally, it's 2 miles down the road). Once he's home, she's already in the tub and we were trying to figure out if there was anything new we did today. We stayed at home and played outside, nothing different. Any new foods? Well, no. For lunch the kids had fish sticks, pretzels, and oranges. Jacob LOVES mustard, so of course he asked for some on his plate to dip his fish sticks. I usually put some on Ella's plate, but she never touches it. But yesterday? Oh, she ate the whole glob! Probably about a teaspoons worth. After her lunch, I laid her right down for her nap. It has to be the mustard. I can't think of anything else she could have eaten that she hasn't had before. But mustard? Really?? Who's allergic to mustard??? Well, apparently 1.1% of children in America, that's who.

So this morning (at around 3am), I peeked in her room to see if she had hives. Yep, she sure did. Had to wake her up to give her more Benadryl. Needless to say, we'll be heading to the doc's office today...