In addition to peanuts, we tested for cashews, pistachios, peas (because Matthew is allergic to those), almonds (because that is one of the few nuts Matthew can eat) and sunflower and sesame seeds because it seemed prudent. Peanut is the only one that Malia tested positive for, but because we don’t eat peas around here I don’t think Malia has ever had them and although we eat almonds I don’t bake with them much (even the extract I have is imitation because that is what I bought and stored before Matthew did that food challenge) so I’m not even sure that she’s eaten those. Our doctor wants her eating almonds in some form at least three times a week to help prevent her from becoming sensitive to them so once I have a chance to catch my breath, I’ll need to feed her some stuff and watch and hope all goes well.
As for the peanut, her reaction was severe enough that our doc recommends complete avoidance including avoiding items that have a risk of being cross contaminated. So for those who’ve never had to do this, for skin prick testing they do two controls-water and histamine (the chemical in the body that causes the swelling, itching, etc. of an allergic reaction). They start the test then usually wait 10-20 minutes, check the skin, and wait 10-20 more minutes. The size of the welt on the skin gives a visual of how allergic a person is. Most of Matthew’s welts have looked like mosquito bites (except milk-that one spread all over his back in multiple hives and the few times we’ve actually done skin testing for peanuts the welts were pretty big). In cases where there is definitely a reaction, they won’t usually wait for that long. They only watched Malia for ten minutes before deciding she was definitely allergic.
The top welt is the one caused by the pure histamine. The lower one is the welt caused by peanuts after only ten minutes.
So I am now the mother of two EpiPen carrying food allergy kids. As a food allergy mom, one of the things that I’ve struggled with off and on over the years is what I could have done to prevent the allergies from happening. But the long and short of it is absolutely nothing. No one is really sure why food allergies even occur. There are many and varied theories on why they happen and the suggestions on how to avoid them are just as numerous and contradictory. Some people say eating nuts during pregnancy with bring on an allergy while others say to give in those peanut butter cravings. Eating peanut butter while nursing is the thing others tell you to avoid while there are those that says it doesn’t matter. Introducing nuts to children early as opposed to late both have supporters. In spite of all that, it can be hard not to look back and think, “If only I had…” In reality, all I can do is look forward and do everything I can to help my kids have as normal a life as possible while teaching them how to stay safe.
And as far as the staying safe part goes, Malia is figuring things out much faster than Kev and I expected. Feeling as miserable and scared as she did definitely made a big impression, but it’s not just that. She has been watching Matthew her entire life and he is so careful and so responsible that just by watching, she already knows a lot about what to do. He has unknowingly become her role model and she is mimicking him as she figures this out. In fact, I showed her a lot of cute pouches and bags for her EpiPens (flowers, pink, girly, all the stuff she loves!) and she looked on all of them with disdain. She wants one like Matthew’s. And I’m okay with that. She’s a lucky girl that she has a big brother who can show her the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment