Talking Allergies

No kidding!!! That would be fantastic to be able to take egg off of the allergy list! Good luck!!!

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Married mom of 4 living children and a baby girl in Heaven.
Between myself, my husband, and our children we have way too many allergies to list.

I swear this entire forum has been the best form of genuine support, encouragement, ideas and amusement for this allergy mama. Thank you all! There are no words to express how nice it is to be able to express what's on my mind knowing I won't be judged. It is nice to know that others just 'get it'.

With all sincerity, Thank you.

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DD 12 yrs -no allergies
4 yr old DS - asthma/eczema Anaphylactic to Peanuts, all tree nuts, sesame , all pea/lentil legumes, gelatin.
Allergic to trees, grass,ragweed, feathers, dander, mold and dust.
Outgrew eggs, fish, shellfish

I totally agree with you!!! This site and all of you are wonderful. It's nice to know that we aren't alone, that others understand.

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Married mom of 4 living children and a baby girl in Heaven.
Between myself, my husband, and our children we have way too many allergies to list.

Well it seems every time I leave the allergist's office my head spinning. The run down, our son no longer shows a positive skin prick to fish so we have the ok to go ahead and introduce salmon (canned only) slowly. His blood test and his skin prick yesterday now both show no allergy to egg so this morning we gave him a dab of yolk and he was fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BUT, he now shows positive for shellfish. Hopefully by avoidance this too like the fish will go away.

He now tests positive for all tree nuts. Before it was walnuts specific. So even though once avoiding one nut you avoid all nuts it was still interesting to see that his severe allergies (even though in the same family) are still expanding.

He also tested positive for dust, ragweed and animal dander (horses). We went last month to walk through stables nearby, he never touched anything but our allergist figured that was enough to trigger the horse dander allergy. He said to expect as we expose our son to more animals he will continue to dev. more animal allergies.
The ragweed explained a lot . We have had issues all summer with the humidity flaring up his eczema but lately he cries and cries outdoors and goes to the door 'all done'. He cries and pulls his hair (now I think that was headache), he sneezed more and would get an itchy red rash all over. For the past week we haven't been outdoors at all with him. After the test yesterday I now at least know exactly what it is. Of course ragweed is at it's highest count on the city website and it appears that it remains that way until mid october. Yeah!! (sarcasm)

The good news also is that although our son reacts to EVERYTHING the first time it seems he didn't test positive for pepper, eggplant, tomatoes, bananas and strawberry. Our son has very different testing behavior which our allergist hasn't encountered before. He is consistently inconsistent in his testing. Within a 12 week period our son can go from reacting but testing neg. to another test and something shows positive. We even did oral challenges a few months ago at the allergist office for tomato and strawberry where our son reacted!!

Say green peas, he reacted severely to having one in his mouth but at 3 different skin pricks it was negative. Then all of a sudden the last 2 times it shows positive (finally). He does this with everything, each time we've had him tested things he has reacted to (sesame, nuts etc.) they take a while for the skin pricks to catch up to the reactions. Our allergist says he would call this more slow to test positive than false negatives. Our little guy has had severe reactions in the drs. office (needing epinephrine) after vaccines yet now 2x in a row shows neg. for gelatin. So we fed him a marshmallow bit yesterday and he was fine????? Singular he reacted to the first time and we were a second away from using the epipen as I was for the strawberry and eggplant. we were told yesterday that his body just seems to react instantly to any foreign substance and that it will just take a second trial to really determine a true allergy from an initial allergic reaction but not a real allergy. We recently did oral challenges over a 3 day period at the dr. office for singular and by the end of the 3 days he didn't even react. So this little guy has us on our toes and I must say it was nice to leave the allergists office on a positive note. I was smart too and made point form notes of everything I wanted to ask, I usually am in the elevator going "OOOHH" as I forgot to ask this or that.

Ok so my rambling is over.
= - )

So we are down to peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, chick peas and green peas...avoiding shellfish. Dust , animal dander and ragweed!!!

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DD 12 yrs -no allergies
4 yr old DS - asthma/eczema Anaphylactic to Peanuts, all tree nuts, sesame , all pea/lentil legumes, gelatin.
Allergic to trees, grass,ragweed, feathers, dander, mold and dust.
Outgrew eggs, fish, shellfish

Sounds like a great appointment me to me!

But I understand the head spinning. With so many allergies to keep track of - which are going up, which are going down, which are skin test positive, which aren't etc.... I always feel like I need a drink after an appointment.

We got good news too this week - DD's wheat numbers when down low enough for us to challenge, and no reaction. In fact she's happily eating a toasted bagel with jam while I type here. We opted to go straight to bakery bread (which has the "may contain traces of milk, soy, eggs" warnings) and no reactions. So 1 allergy down, 11 to go...

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6 year old son - eczema and sensitive skin
4 year old daughter - allergic to nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, mustard and eggs; has outgrown allergies to wheat and legumes (by age 2) and to dairy, soy (by age 3.5).

BC2007, has your son reacted to fish in the past? It sounds like your allergist wants you to do an oral challenge at home.

Or has your son never had fish and this is basically the green light to try salmon. It is confusing at times, isn't it?

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Moderator
Daughter: asthma, allergies to egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, most legumes (not soy and green beans) & penicillin. Developing hayfever type allergies.
Husband: no allergies
Me: Oral Allergy Syndrome, Allergic to Birch trees

you have had some lovely posts, and i can only add that we too have worn that t-shirt.

you are entering the most difficult phase for multiple allergic children.
can remember it very well.

my son is now 13 and right at the moment i am waiting for him to come home after a day out with his uncle and cousins. recent phone they were on there way home , but traffic bad , so are stopping to eat somewhere ..............................(not been planned at all)..

however, even though i am worried, its not as bad a stress level as you have right now.

current allergies for my son to date,

severe,

peanut
brazil nut
all beans
rew egg
yeast extract
kiwi
dog
others,
tree pollen,
dustmite
cat.

over years outgrown, cooked egg, (and raw , but re-developed recently) and hay fever.



tree nuts except brazil.

Urmila that is awesome, how wonderful for your daughter. How did she like her bagel? Did she enjoy it as much as you hoped she would? I'm with you as far as having a drink after a visit to the allergist, they should have a tray of jello shooters or something for parents on the way out.

Williamsmommy, how was the unplanned dinner out?

Isn't it amazing how getting rid of just one allergy opens up so many options others wouldn't even think of. The egg challenge doesn't worry me as the blood test and skin prick are negative. The fish challenge makes me nervous so I think I'll be dressed and have the diaper bag packed ready to go for that one. He's never eaten fish or any fish product, unless goldfish crackers count.

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DD 12 yrs -no allergies
4 yr old DS - asthma/eczema Anaphylactic to Peanuts, all tree nuts, sesame , all pea/lentil legumes, gelatin.
Allergic to trees, grass,ragweed, feathers, dander, mold and dust.
Outgrew eggs, fish, shellfish

Urmila, while I'm glad that your little one is enjoying her bread, I do want to point out that it is recommended that individuals with severe food allergies avoid foods with labels indicating it may contain their allergens.

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Moderator
Daughter: asthma, allergies to egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, most legumes (not soy and green beans) & penicillin. Developing hayfever type allergies.
Husband: no allergies
Me: Oral Allergy Syndrome, Allergic to Birch trees

BC2007, We just took our son for his annual visit with the allergist last week. We had some potentially good news (he tested negative for tuna!), and some bad news (more on that later). We had decided at the allergists office to test for fish again, and the allergist suggested a fish that has lower allergenicity (spelling?). Anyway, canned tuna was a good choice for this. Our son was tested for tuna 18 months ago, and was positive. He is now negative, so he received the RAST, and if the number is good, we will go on to a food challenge. I specifically wanted to tell you the allergist said we should NOT do an oral challenge with fresh fish, but with fish from the can. When fish has been sitting around in a can for awhile, it loses some of its potent allergencity. Also, the allergist said salmon has a higher allergenicity, so it's better to try tuna.

(As a side note, our bad news, although not life threatening, is still disappointing. Our son has been having some trouble with various fruits, and likely has oral allergy and has tested positive to tree pollen, grass, ragweed and weeds without ragweed.)

Best of luck with the food challenge! Do you feel comfortable doing this at home? It certainly does carry risk, so if you are going to do this, introduce the food very carefully. I am going to tell you what was recommended to us for "home testing", but you should not take my word for this approach to testing, but consult your allergists office for the recommended approach. Here is the approach that was recommended to us: Start with touching your son's cheek with the food, then wait 10-15 mins. Then touch his lip, and wait 10-15 mins. Then touch the tongue, and wait 10-15 mins. Then introduce a very small (miniscule) amount of food to eat, and wait 10-15 mins. If you are successful in reaching this stage, you can double the amount of food ingested every 10-15 mins until you've reached a small amount ingested. I wouldn't try introducing too much of the food for this initial test, at least not in a clinical setting. Of course, I'm sure you will be ready to handle any reaction with the Epipen ready. You need lots of time to do this, and no plans in case your son has an allergic reaction.
I

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18 yr old daughter: no health issues
16 yr old son: allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, egg, fish, sesame,sunflower,mustard,poppy seeds, peas, carrots, some fruits, instructed to avoid legumes(except soy & green beans),pollen, cats, horses, cold urticaria

my son was fine, no problems. i just have to get over my worries, ...............

Julie, thanks SO much for the oral challenge tips. Appreciated! Our allergist did recommend canned fish but didn't mention tuna was a better choice so I'll follow your advice there. We did test egg and he seems fine, I tried cooked yolk (teeny bits) two different days, then we tried a tiny tiny bit of scrambled egg (yolk and white) with no problem.
I haven't tried the fish yet, so I'm glad I saw your suggestions regarding the fish o.c..

I am so sorry about the OAS, I completely understand the disspointment. Just when it looks like more food is opening up others are closed. I get how even though it isn't life threatening it is sad. Riding the allergy roller coster sucks at time. It looks like we have the same issue. Our son tested positive for ragweed which explained his issues lately being outside. Coming inside with his chest heaving, rash, crying..I assume headaches etc..
He's eaten watermelon many times but two nights ago anywhere the juice touched he got an itchy red rash. Of course being 23 months that meant everywhere!! His eyes were watering and he was sneezing. Nothing that needed more than benadryl but when I looked at my sheet of foods affected by ragweed watermelon was listed. I assume that after ragweed season (and before) he should be ok with the affected foods. He has refused zucchini lately too, as soon as I feed it to him he spews and spits over and over. He pretty much lives on zucchini so it wasn't until the watermelon incident I realized zucchini too is probable with ragweed OAS. AAAARRGG.
Hey, if we can both get rid of fish I guess that is something to celebrate, the rest (sigh) is just another bump in the road.



on a different note. At the first day of school today I couldn't help but zone in on the younger kids, faces still covered in food, grabbing and playing with each other. I got shivers!! I wish a safe and positive school year to all those dealing with food allergies and other health issues.

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DD 12 yrs -no allergies
4 yr old DS - asthma/eczema Anaphylactic to Peanuts, all tree nuts, sesame , all pea/lentil legumes, gelatin.
Allergic to trees, grass,ragweed, feathers, dander, mold and dust.
Outgrew eggs, fish, shellfish

have to add am not a fan of home food challenges..............esp if testing to see if outgrown.

not good practice imo.

Oh, and another thanks to Allergic Living, After our son's watermelon incident I looked to Mr. Google and the summer issue of allergic living where there was a full article on OAS.

Williamsmummy, I agree with you. I think that is why fish makes me nervous as he's tested positive but never eaten it. So we are really in the unknown now even though his skin prick says negative.

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DD 12 yrs -no allergies
4 yr old DS - asthma/eczema Anaphylactic to Peanuts, all tree nuts, sesame , all pea/lentil legumes, gelatin.
Allergic to trees, grass,ragweed, feathers, dander, mold and dust.
Outgrew eggs, fish, shellfish

In my daughter's case, skin tests have come up negative to foods that have made her mouth itch (e.g., peanuts) so we consider her allergic. Her skin test was really low to tree nuts yet on the RAST at least one was high. And after the test she had an anaphylactic reaction to a trace of a tree nut.

In my case, allergy test to strawberries said no allergy yet my mouth itched a few times eating them but after my tongue went numb I stopped eating them.

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me: allergic to crustaceans plus environmental
teenager: allergic to hazelnuts, some other foods and environmental