It's been years since we've posted on the blog, but I thought I'd do a quick update.

Our now 6-year-old daughter has been doing maintenance doses of peanut butter every day since she graduated in 2015. Most of the time, it's no big deal... it was hard to get her to eat it at first, but we've got a system down.

She gets her peanuts directly after dinner since we generally can observe a couple of hours of calmness afterward. But she has to have them at least an hour before she goes to sleep or her hormone levels which change at that time may cause a reaction. We mix a 1:1 ratio of peanut butter to powdered sugar, scoop it into balls and put chocolate chips studded around it. She has gotten good enough to just eat her two 1/2TBS peanut butter ball in one bite. Then she washes her hands and we're done! We have loved being able to send her to school without worrying about lunch, treats, etc. It's wonderful!

There have been a handful of nasty reactions, however. The first happened probably about 6 months from her graduation when she took a warm bath a couple of hours after her dose. We were doing peanuts in the morning back then. After her bath, she hopped out and was chilly. Almost immediately she was covered in hives and coughing. I gave her oral medications, but her coughing and itching were so intense and the crying freaked me out. I ended up giving her the Epipen for the first time (and last to date). Her oral medications may have worked, but I didn't want to risk not giving the epinephrine.

She's had other reactions after that as well, usually after an hour or so of eating peanuts and then jumping on the trampoline, coming inside from playing in the snow or doing something that really raised her body temperature. That's partly why we've moved her dose time to the evening. There's less physically going on during that time, so she stays cool and calm.

Her recent blood work had her overall anti-peanut antibodies down in the 20s! That's a huge difference from >100!

We have had a wonderful experience with OIT so far, and while we aren't happy that our 1-year-old daughter also has a peanut allergy, we are hopeful that she can have just as good an outcome.