Roy-I will keep Nathan in my thoughts and prayers, he's a trooper and I wish him the best in his battle. 
Fret-I noticed over at your Valentine story 
you mentioned your son had allergies, eczema, asthma...and you've mentioned your immune system since you were young. This is an area of medicine I find a big void...the whole immunology arena...some of the research is inconsistent. It concerns me why asthma and autism are on the rise along with peanut allergies. I'm hoping your son does not have a peanut allergy, because if he does you already know about the combo w/asthma. One of my son's has a peanut allergy (without asthma) since he was a baby and had infantile eczema that came back after 17 years when he went on accutane for acne.
There is a 10 year old boy on my street who is autistic, so that's how I started tuning into that, research keeps going back and forth on the vaccine issue...many parents said symptoms and changes in their child kicked in right after the vaccination. Also, some research has said that in other countries where they don't vaccinate like the US, food allergies are not as prevelant, so I wonder about all that. Back when my mom's generation were raising babies in the 50's, pediatricians followed a much stricter guideline for introducing foods. My youngest is 15 so I don't know if that's swung back to the old ways or not, but my feeling personally with some research and first hand knowledge, I would not introduce peanuts/peanut butter before a child is 3 years old...the immune system is not developed enough and its possible to by-pass getting the allergy. I have read that in my research, but its not written up in any well known medical journals or anything. My son does not fit the typical profile of having a food allergy...parents allergic etc. I think he's allergic because his immune system may have had a predisposition and when I ate peanuts during pregnancy or nursing, he was exposed to it, therefore when he ate peanut butter for the first time at 18 months, he reacted, the second time worse, the third time much worse...every organ in his body was affected, he was ten, he could have died. He had one bite of an unlabeled bagel that was made with a couple of swirls of peanut butter. In laymen's terms-for some people, the body has a memory and everytime the allergic person is exposed the reaction is more severe, so that's my son's pattern unfortunately. Peanut allergies are the most deadly food allergy one can have, seafood is likely second. True story-someone I know lost a very good friend with a peanut allergy on a US Air flight...they served peanuts back then (about 10 years ago) and the same air recirculates in the cabin, he died on the flight. Every US Air flight I've been on since then, peanuts were not served any more, more recently I've been flying Southwest and people carry peanut butter sandwiches on the plane...I don't travel on planes that much, maybe once a year.
I belong to the Food and Allergy Network and receive updates on research etc. I was wondering if you ever found any consistencies in what triggers your son's eczema at different times? Does he have food allergies? Send me an e-mail if you want to swap any info. I hope everyone feels better soon!! Everyone has a snow day today, its our first decent snow, its beautiful, but I understand how it can get old...
Fretwork wrote:Reading about Nathan makes me count my blessings. He will be in my prayers.
I found out driving into work that my hubby and son's influenza B tests came back positive. I left work at 6:30 last night with the chills sore tired muscles and a fever of 102 myself. My son even had a flu shot because of his asthma, but that didn't stop it. Hopefully we'll all be better soon.
Hey, there is heat in the house and the pipes aren't frozen anymore!
Back to bed . . .
StringsforaCURE~Helping cancer patients one STRING at a time.
http://stringsforacure.com/
I must agree, this winter is the SH*TS! I got so tired of doing triple toe loops with 1/2 half twist and 3/4 flop onto my driveway, that I've started a new dance called the "BluesMan Shuffle". To simulate it, get onto a pitched skating rink and just shuffle your feel to the end. The tough part about my driveway is not the going down to the mail box, it's the coming back up the pitch. James Brown never had anything on me!