A List of Questions for the Doctor

Like any parent of a child with a diagnosed medical condition I had a lot of questions. Truth be told I still have a lot of questions. Every time I go to the doctor, which is quite often probably every six weeks or less at this point, I have more questions for the doctor. I've found making lists the best way for me to deal with my never ending well of questions and concerns.

Some of the questions on my first list:

1. When should we administer the Epipen Jr.?
2. What should we do after we give it to him?
3. Can we give more than one dose?
4. How many should we carry on us?
5. When should we just give Benadryl?
6. When will he grow out of his allergies?
7. What are the chances he will grow out of them?
8. Is he allergic to anything else?
9. How do we know what has milk and eggs in it?
10. Are there any resources for parents?
11. Are there any support groups out there?
12. When I have another child will I need to eat differently in order to breastfeed?
13. What are the chances that other children we have will have these allergies?
14. Should we switch to soy formula?

The next time we went to the doctor we began understanding the severity of my sons reactions and therefore we had even more questions.

They were:

1. Are there medications out there that can help him on a daily basis so he doesn't have so many reactions?
2. Does he also have environmental allergies? (At this point he was showing signs he did.)
3. Is it normal to have so many reactions even when we are so careful?
4. How often can he be given Benadryl?
5. Can we preemptively give him Benadryl before we go to places were there is a strong likelihood he could get a reaction?
6. Is Purell enough remove traces of the allergens if we don't have soap or water?
7. Is mouth wash enough to remove them from our mouths?
8. Will the eczema issues continue?
9. What activities can he participate in?
10. Can he attend preschool?
11. Can we go on vacation?

These are just a few of the many questions that have confronted us since discovering his allergies. For many of them we haven't received answers from the doctors but rather we found out ourselves through trial and error what worked and what didn't. The ones that didn't were especially upsetting for me because I had to see my son go through yet another reaction. However, we've learned a lot in the process and have discovered ways to cope with many situations. My biggest lesson has been that we need to be flexible and creative.