Tolerance Visit 1
On April 10th 2025, one whole year ago, we traveled to California for Tolerance Visit 1. This visit is a big milestone in the TIP program. Luca challenged 19 peanuts and passed. To say we were on cloud nine would be an understatement. His graduation appointment was only months away and we were amazed at how much his body had learned to tolerate.
However, just 5 days into our dosing cycle at home, Luca had an anaphylactic reaction that required his epi-pen, the rest of his emergency medications, and a trip to the ER - followed by another anaphylactic reaction 2 weeks later. While Luca thankfully recovered quickly from both reactions, Gabe and I have been sorting this out for months.
Providers with TIP think that even though Luca completed his hour rest period post-peanut consumption, it wasn’t enough time. They simply think eating 18 peanuts, and then going outside to play hard in the springtime when pollen counts are high overflowed his “allergy bucket,” leading to a reaction. We have made several changes in the last year to prevent this from happening again and he has done well, but as parents, it has been tough moving forward. Turns out, handing your kid a handful of peanuts every evening after it’s sent him to the emergency room multiple times is not an easy thing to do! I feel that food allergies are often misunderstood, probably in part due to the way media portrays them in a joking way. The scary truth though, is that food allergies can absolutely be life-threatening and it’s a very challenging thing to deal with on a daily basis. That’s the whole reason we started TIP. We want Luca to be safe and have a full life. But getting there is proving to be a JOURNEY.
Continuing this program and dosing every day after what happened last year has been really hard for us. We have made it so far though and we are so close. We are pushing forward and trying to trust the process. It has taken us a full year to get back to where we were last year when Luca had those reactions.
We are extremely eager to complete this program, as it’s getting more difficult the older Luca gets. TIP requires you to invest so much time and money and the older our kids get, the busier our lives become. It’s getting really challenging to find 2-4 hours every day where we can be home to safely do dosing.
Luca has come so incredibly far. It wasn’t that long ago that it seemed like he could hardly eat anything, and now he can eat everything except for peanuts. It has really opened up a whole new world for us and we have so much peace of mind knowing how much safer he is out in the world. It’s what has been keeping us going every day this past year when all we wanted to do was give up.
We head back to California very soon to repeat Luca’s Tolerance 1 Visit. The kids are excited to be going back (especially Gia!) and we have some fun things planned. Here are some photos from our last visit. It’s always amazing to me looking at pictures from past trips and seeing how much growing up our kids have done since our last California trip. This trip was just over a year ago and Luca and Gia look so much littler than they do now. We spent a fun couple days doing all our usual favorite things in addition to going to the Long Beach Grand Prix! We are hoping and praying for an uneventful appointment and dosing cycle this time around, and excited to make more memories as a family during our next trip!
