food allergies- feeling scared

[StranjeGirl]

DD seemed to possibly have a reaction to avocado and definitely to egg. We saw an allergist last week and she has ordered a blood test and prescribed an epipen. I feel so paranoid now and have a horrible feeling that she is allergic to much more. I'm so scared to feed her anything new, and every time the littlest thing happens I think it is one of the foods she ate and I stop giving it to her.
We are having her tested for mulitple things, but how reliable are these tests? My biggest fear is peanuts, as those cause most of the severe reactions. However she has never had nuts so they probably wont show up on a blood test right? I'm thinking of giving her a little almond butter so she is at least exposed to that before the test (we are testing for that too) Dh has a mild nut allergy.
Is anyone else fearful due to food allergy? Does the worry ever get better? THe allergist does not want her eating those foods until tested again 3 years. She didn't want her trying eggs baked in cakes etc either- which makes my life very difficult (and I feel it deprives her if perhaps she can tolerate those foods- why keep them from her right?)
Anyone have anything to say about the blood test and what to expect from the results? DD1 has terrible seasonal allergies, but no food allergies that I know of, so this is all new to me. Thanks in advance!

 

[iiTTCii]

I started having problems with DD when we started weaning. She had severe reactions to egg and ended up in hospital. She also had quite bad reactions to tomatoes and chicken, although nowhere near as bad as the egg. She was under a dietician who advised waiting until 1 year to try tomatoe again but to leave the egg as it was so severe. We tried her again with tomatoe around 14 months and she was fine, she will just get a rash around her face now and again after having it.
The doctors had said that if a child hasn't grown out of an allergy by 1 year, then they will retest every 12 months and if they still have it by 4 then they assume it's going to be a life long allergy.
DD is being tested for her egg allergy at the hospital in a couple of weeks. By the sounds of it, they will try her with egg at the hospital and she will stay for a few hours (as they say if you are going to have a severe reaction, it would be within the hour) to see how she gets on. I'm going to ask about nuts whilst there as I was told if a baby has any allergies or family history of nut allergies then it's advised to get the go a head from a doctor before trying them with nuts.

 

[VickyLou]

My daughter is allergic to cows milk protein, soya, tomatoes, bananas and mangos. She had a blood test done a couple of months ago but they came back negative cause she is NON IGE, meaning her reactions are mainly gut reactions with small amounts of eczema rather than breathing reactions. There are a lot of mixed opinions about blood tests, the chances are if its a mild reaction it won't show up in the blood. It it's instant within 4hours then it should show up in blood.
I also haven't tried my daughter with nuts as I am slightly allergic due to having asthma. Terrified of trying her incase she has a really bad reaction. Don't be to scared to try your child with things, they need to be exposed to things so you know. It does get easier. I've recently started to re-introduce tomatoes and small amounts of soya. So far so good at a year old.

 

[MindUtopia]

I would most of all say get advice from a doctor you trust (and find another one if you don't feel like you're getting advice you trust). But I can tell you about our experience. My daughter had a severe reaction twice to pumpkin seeds (pumpkin seed butter, who even knew there was such a thing?) about 7-8 months. She had had it several times before with no problem and then one day I gave it to her for lunch and about 2 hours later she started to projectile vomit everywhere and became really listless and out of it. I honestly didn't think much of it because I assumed she was just a little disoriented after vomiting up that much in such a dramatic way. Her breathing was fine, but she was just really groggy and not right. We had some cuddles on the sofa and she eventually perked up and seemed fine. I didn't connect it at all to anything she might have eaten. About a month later, I offered her the pumpkin seed butter again with dinner and then she went to bed a little after. She woke up about 2 hours after eating it again, projectile vomiting everywhere, and her whole face was covered in a red rash and puffy and her eyes were red and puffy. She was breathing fine, but again really sort of listless and groggy, like conscious, but really disoriented seeming. This time it looked much more obviously like an allergic reaction. Her face and eyes stayed red and puffy for the next 24-48 hours. I started thinking back and realized that the one thing she had eaten in common both times this happened was the pumpkin seed butter about 2 hours before.

We saw our GP and she advised against allergy testing, saying it wasn't very effective at this age. As we could pretty clearly connect it to a specific food and the reaction wasn't bad enough that she stopped breathing or anything too severe (though it looked pretty bad at the time!), she advised eliminating it until after a year and trying again. We did that and when we tried her with the same pumpkin seed butter around 14 months, she was perfectly fine. Now pumpkin seeds are actually one of her favourite foods and she snacks on them all the time. For us that was good advice and I felt comfortable with what we did and we had a good outcome, but I think you have to trust your gut and do what you think is best. But I would also try not to live in fear. If you had a bad breathing reaction, would they be able to give you an epipen? I know some people have them for their toddlers, but I'm not sure they do that in babies? Otherwise, I would just try not to be afraid. I remember going to my daughter's nursery and explaining this when she was just starting there and asking them to avoid pumpkin seeds (as if they normally give them pumpkin seeds there anyway?) and the director asked if we wanted them to cut out all seeds and what about things like stir frys that had seasame oil in it. And I was like, oh, god, seasame oil, I hadn't even thought to worry about that! But actually it was fine, and we never had another bad reaction after those ones. I think that is more often the cases than kids with allergies that persist long-term.

 

[StranjeGirl]

Thanks so much ladies. I'm sorry you too are dealing with allergies, but it's comforting to know I'm not alone. I did get blood drawn and will get the results Ina couple weeks (although who knows how accurate it will be) and did get an epipen. DD had another reaction to raspberries yesterday. After eating a few I noticed a little red patch under her lip so I rubbed some on her hand. Her hand completely blistered within minutes of the raspberry touching it. Now I'm rubbing anything new on her skin first. Thanks for the hope that she will grow out of these!