Latest Trip to Duke

It's been three months since our last trip to Duke University Hospital.  It was time to hit the road and make the drive to Durham to visit the Duke Clinical Research Unit.

It was a lab visit.  These occur every 6 months.  I think Abigail dreads the saliva collection more than the blood draw.  She dislikes spitting into that collection tube.  She also had another skin prick test.  The last one was done at Abigail's food challenge back in June of last year.  Here's a picture from that test.

 

Here's a picture of her back after the test this week.  The top prick on the left is the highest dose of the peanut protein.  The prick on the bottom right is the histamine.  That first prick is about the same size as the one in June 2010.  The second prick was about the size of a pin head.  Her doctor traced it, but didn't record the others.  There was nothing to trace.  You can definitely see the difference between these tests.  How exciting! 

Last, but not least, they had to do a blood draw to get new IgE numbers.  I know they do a regular blood panel to monitor her overall health, but I'm not sure what else they look at.  Regardless, there were 5, maybe 6 tubes they needed to fill.  Do you know what Abigail did?  The nurse inserted the needle, but Abigail put on and removed each of the tubes.  It was unbelievable.  Here's a picture of her changing out the tube.

Six months ago, Abigail's IgE number was 12.8.  The doctor thinks that this time around we might possibly see a single digit number on the lab report.  I can't wait to get those results!

There was also opportunity to ask lots of questions about what's next for us in the trial as well as get an update on the results to date of the sublingual immunotherapy study. I'll cover all of that in my next post.