Peanut Study Update

I wanted to provide an update as I know some people reading are also dealing with peanut allergies just like us.

Remember last December when the SLIT study was put on hold... well - it has re-opened and kids are back in it. At the same time they re-opened SLIT, they also re-opened OIT (Oral ImmunoTherapy) and we opted in for that one instead. It is not double blind - Matthew is absolutely receiving peanut every day in the form of peanut flour.

We started back in March, and on day 1 he ramped up to a dose of 6mg. He really struggled with the 6mg dose - lots of symptoms and discomfort. We ended up rolling him back to 3mg for about 2 weeks, then re-escalating to 6mg for another 2 weeks and he has been (touch wood...) fine ever since.

Today he is consuming 25mg of peanut flour, and next week goes to 50. The dose doubles every two weeks until we get to 100mg - then there is a 25% increase every 2 weeks. This continues until he reaches the maintenance dose of 4000mg - or about the equivalent of 13 peanuts. The team expects him to be at 4000 by fall of this year.

Once Matthew is on maintenance - he consumes the 4000mg daily for 4 months. He will then have his blood drawn to run a CAP-Rast test to detect the level of peanut protein antibody in his bloodstream... if it is 2 or less, he will be eligible for a double blind food challenge. If his level is still above 2 - we continue on maintenance for another 4 months, and then check his blood again... until at some point he gets to 2 or less.

OIT is the same protocol that was used for his egg desensitization... so we KNOW it works! It will take some time, and until we get to 4000 - it's a lot of travel back and forth to Duke - but so worth it in the end!!!

In other allergy news - Ainsley is now eating egg products! Very much by chance she consumed a cookie that contained egg (accident - woops!) but NO REACTION! Since then we have given her egg noodles, waffles and of course DOUGHNUTS - and she has passed those tests with flying colours! We'll wait a while longer to try full on eggs... but progress for her too!!