There are over 50 OIT family blogs published in our “Research & Learn“ library. They contain the journey of that family in OIT–some are in clinical trials, and others are in private practice with board-certified allergists. All the blogs are fascinating to read, full of wisdom and knowledge unique to that family’s journey.
It’s important to only do OIT with a board-certified allergist who has undergone special training and preparation to be able to safely offer oral immunization. This blog post shows us why: illness is a part of life, especially for a child. Dr. Nash, her doctor, was actually first a researcher in the Duke University studies for OIT. Dr. Nash left the studies and set up his own allergy practice to try and help change children’s lives.
When going through the updosing period and the immune system is perhaps compromised, we try and reduce the stress on it as a precaution. This the part of “doctoring” where the skill of the physician comes in. No dosing pamphlet can factor in all the data to recommend a plan that keeps a child in OIT safe when sick.
ONE EXCERPT FROM THE BLOG:
Saturday, September 21, 2013
75 mgms, Then back to 50 mgm
B successfully up dosed to 75 mgs a few weeks ago. She had been on that dose at home for a few days… but then she became ill. It happened on a Tuesday. We began our homeschooling day as usual. Around 9am she began to complain of a headache. I wasn’t sure if it was a big deal or not because sometimes she just doesn’t want to do her work. Then an hour later, she said she was freezing cold. I felt her forehead and she felt fine. I told her to go get a hoodie on, and to come back to class. About 30 minutes later, she was laying on the couch and looking miserable. Then she started to get feverish. I took her temp, which was at 101.7 and called her OIT doctor. He instructed us to skip dosing for the day, and to plan on coming back to NC within the next 2 days.
For the rest of that day, Brooke rested and I let the fever burn. At 102.7 she was miserable, so I gave her a dose of Advil. That night, she threw up in the middle of the night. She threw up again the next morning… but sometime in the middle of the night, her fever had broken and thankfully, it never returned. We let her sleep all morning on Wednesday, and when she finally woke up around noon, she was all smiles. We put her in the car and made the 6.5 hour trek to NC. Luckily she had no other issues and was on her way to feeling much better.
The next morning, we had an appointment with the doc. He told us that because she had bounced back so quickly, that he would only need to down dose her to her previous dosage of 50mgs. If she hadn’t recovered quickly, she would have had to down dose to 25mgs and we would have lost a month of progress.
Needless to say, we are trying very hard to keep her healthy. We’re doing all we can just short of keeping her in a bubble. She takes probiotics and multivitamins daily. She sleeps with a heavy duty air purifier in her room. We use xylitol nasal spray at the first hint of any respiratory distress. We home school, we hand sanitize, we wash hand frequently… but sometimes all of that just isn’t enough. Sometimes she is just going to get sick and there’s nothing we can do to prevent it.
