The new allergist rocks . . . so far

We took Caris to an allergy & immunology specialist on Monday at Cedars-Sinai. Now my little town has its fair share of good doctors, but our local allergy specialist (the one recommended to us, anyway) just could not get Caris' situation under control. Her eczema was causing us all grief on a daily, even hourly, basis. So off we went. The new allergist (we'll call him Dr. A) was absolutely wonderful. His office is hip and fun (though the front office girls are decidedly snotty) and Dr. A is just who we needed. He talked to the whole family respectfully, then did a quite thorough examination. He found, in fact, an ear infection we didn't know was there, and he said her constant itchiness is probably blocking her from feeling pain. We then did a second round of skin tests (the first having been performed by our local guy), and while we waited the 20 minutes for the results, the nurse brought in a portable dvd player for her to watch Elmo. Nice touch! Guess what? She came back highly allergic to peanuts, questionable for cats & dairy, and absolutely negative for bermuda, tree nuts, dogs and strawberries! Woo hoo!! We then went back into his consultation room and he explained the course of action he would like to take and made sure we understood every bit of it down to the smallest detail. (For example, I asked where exactly do I apply a certain medication, and he got up and physically showed us, "I would put it here, here, here . . . ") We are on day 3 of the new medications and her skin, nose and eyes are VASTLY improved already. I'm still a bit skeptical since we had great results in the past with other medications, but four days into each one the symptoms would all come back fiercely. For now, I'm holding out hope and enjoying the peace my daughter can have without scratching herself all day.