B is now in what is considered the "maintenance" part of her two year long journey. This entire second year, she will be consuming 4.5 grams of peanut on a daily basis. During this time it is expected that her IgE will lower to a desensitized level. At the end of B's second year of therapy, she will have a food challenge, which will consist of eating a large amount of peanut. If she does not react, she will be free to consume as much peanut as she wants... but will be required to eat peanut on an almost daily basis to maintain her desensitization.
Last June, we found out that there was a local pediatric allergist who was planning on starting his own private practice and was planning to offer OIT! Imagine how thrilled I was to learn that this doctor's office would be 20 minutes from our home. The thought of no longer travelling 7+ hours to obtain treatment was so appealing. We would no longer have to spend money on travel expenses or hotels. No more subsequent trips to NC each time my child became ill. The kids wouldn't have to miss anymore school, my hubby wouldn't have to take any more sick days! This change would cut our out of pocket expenses in half. No more $1,000.00/ month bills! I couldn't believe our luck!
When I say "luck," I truly mean "LUCK!"
You see, there are only 24 doctors across the United States who are offering this therapy in private practice. This life saving treatment is definitely not well known or even completely accepted. We just happened to have the 24th doctor opening up an OIT clinic, do so 20 minutes from our home! The only hesitation we had was that this doctor was new to OIT and had no previous experience with OIT. But, after talking to him, meeting with him and learning that he was going to follow the exact same protocol as our current North Carolina doctor, we decided to take a leap of faith and trust that this was all in God's plan for B... maybe it wasn't "luck" after all!
In October, we officially made the switch to B's new allergist. With the switch in location, also came a switch in the form of peanut. Our NC doctor had been giving B 2400 milligrams of peanut flour which our new allergist calculated to be the equivalent of 4.5 grams of actual peanut. Depending on the size of the peanut, it equals 4 or 5 peanuts that B is consuming daily. We had previously been told that 2400 mgms of peanut flour was equal to 8 peanuts... but found out through several sources that this simply wasn't true. So, 4 to 5 peanuts daily it is!
Now that we have a doctor that is closer, we are considering desensitizing B to all of her allergens. There are some tree nuts that are just as deadly to B as peanuts are. We chose to desensitize to peanut first because of how ubiquitous it is. It truly is everywhere (as are clueless people that don't believe accommodations for children with life threatening allergies are necessary).
I cannot stress enough, how life changing this therapy has been for our family and for B. She is not even done with the therapy yet, but we have already seen a tremendous difference in her confidence. While she still has to be extremely careful about coming into contact with certain tree nuts, we are not as worried about peanut. She still has to be careful about what she eats because she cannot have even a single milligram more than 4.5 grams of peanut. She still follows all the same precautions and only eats foods we provide her. She still brings her own safe cupcake to friends birthday parties. We still examine food labels like we are the FBI. However we know that she is much more protected from peanut now, than she was a year ago... and that (to us) is priceless!
