Ugh! Allergies!

We found out Elizabeth had food allergies on her first birthday. Where ever the frosting from her birthday cake touched her face she broke out in hives. That following Monday she received the MMR vaccine at her 1 year pedi appointment. That started a month long illness that scared the snot out of me. Twice we had to take her to the hospital for fluids. It was the longest month of my life. After being referred to the allergy clinic for testing, Elizabeth was diagnosed with the following allergies:

Milk
Beef
Strawberries
Eggs
Shellfish
White fish (cod, haddock, halibut)
Peanuts

They said out of all of them the peanut one was the worst. The allergist also said 80% of children will out grow food allergies, but most will not outgrow the shellfish allergy.

Milk, Beef, and Strawberries were put on an elimination diet, meaning we were to remove them and slowly introduce them back into her diet one at a time. She doesn't like beef and strawberries, so that was easy. She does drink milk, and has very mild eczema on her legs as a result.
We're teaching her about peanuts. We talk about what kinds of foods have peanuts, and she's learning the different candy bars at the check out. She already knows she can have the brown bag of M&Ms, but not the yellow bag. She knows the yellow bag will make her sick.

She can eat eggs. She's always been able to eat eggs. What's weird about this one is through trial and error, I believe it's food items with egg 'product' in them. One example is certain kinds of breading (like on the spinach bites we used to get). They will make her break out in hives, yet another brand of breaded chicken fingers and she's just fine. Egg noodles make her break out in hives. Also, some marinara sauces make her break out in hives. Which makes me think she's allergic to some type of acid found in sauces like that. Other than that one month back when she turned one, she only ever breaks out in hives around her mouth - almost as if it's a topical reaction where the food touches her face. It's all very strange. We manage it pretty well. We're good at making sure we have an epi pen when we go places. Thankfully we've never had to use it, but it's always with us. I'm due to bring her back and have her re-tested, but I'm hesitant. The first time was just awful for her. I'm not sure of the benefits of bringing her again. Other than maybe one day I could feed her a peanut butter sandwich. :)