Allergy Aware

When Ellie was one, as per UK health guidelines she tried honey for the first time. It can't have interested her much because when I turned my back for a few seconds she swiped a piece of my peanut butter on toast, took a bite, swallowed it and when I turned back to her she had a neat row of hives from her cheek to her chest.

I immediately called the doctor who ran through all the checks with me, how big are the hives? how fast did they appear? Is her throat swelling? Is she breathing normally? Do you have any Piriton? Can you give her a spoonful right now? I did. I watched and he waited on the other end of the phone. Thankfully there were no other danger signs and his advice was to avoid peanut butter until she was at least 4 before re-introducing it to her because it wasn't standard NHS practice to allergy test a baby (!I know!).

Over the next few years we diligently avoided her having peanuts and peanut butter and she became acutely aware that peanuts were something she had to avoid - just in case. One day an accident happened, a knife that had been used to spread some peanut butter was washed, wiped and used to cut a piece of cheese. As soon as that piece of cheese touched her lips, they swelled and began to itch. I grabbed the cheese, grabbed the bottle of Piriton and we played the waiting game....phew, panic over as the symptoms subsided. We decided we would have to get her allergy tested.

We arrived in the US and the kids pediatrician agreed with us that an allergy test was necessary and then we waited and waited for our medical insurance details and information to come through. What constituted a 6 month delay I'll never know but finally a couple of weeks ago everything arrived and it was straight to the Allergist's office for both Ellie and Luke.

Day 1 and Ellie was tested first with skin scratch tests on her back for a reaction to peanuts, pecans, walnuts and one other, I forget which. Within seconds her back was a maze of hives around the peanut area and she was itching terribly and she had to wait like that for 15 minutes while I fanned her back and tried to distract her from all the discomfort. Affirmative: Ellie is allergic to peanuts but not to any other nuts. The doctor then ran through the allergy drill with me and wrote a prescription for two Epi-pens and trained me on how to use them. He doesn't feel her allergy is severe enough to be life threatening but better to be safe than sorry.

Day 2, Luke's turn. After the previous day I was dreading going through the same with a toddler but he was as good as gold and thankfully is not allergic to peanuts.

Having discussed the family history of allergies, asthma, eczema the doctor has advised that Ellie now be tested for bee/insect stings. Luke only if Ellie's is positive. It's a good time of year to get it out of the way but this test involves *blood* and *needles* and after having gone through a 10 week immunisation programme to go to India you can imagine Ellie's reaction level to needles now - it verges on hysterical. I have decided to mentally prepare myself before we go but cannot decide whether to mentally prepare her or just go with the element of surprise.