Bit off topic - nut allergy anyone?

moneysaving_pharmacist

Two points to remember about epipens:
1) keep an eye on the expiry date
2) make sure you know how to use it and which end the needle comes out as you don't want it going in to your thumb.

Gemmzie

A lot of people think they have nut allergies when in many it's an intolerance - huge difference. My dietician said there's so many people who think they have food allergies and they have an intolerance.
Also "allergy testing" done by anyone other than a hospital are a complete waste of time and money (learnt that the hard way, £200 lighter :mad:)

Plus, there's so much junk in food now - stabilisers, preservatives etc - that the way these things interact with each other in the food with your individual stomach simply can't be determined, so that causes a lot of these reactions too.

3plus1

Mum_on_a_mission wrote: »

But does anyone here have this allergy and can descibe what it feels like? DS was distraught and being not quite 5 couldn't really tell me what was happening apart from "I sick" - fairly obvious that one!

In my opinion, it feels different for every allergy sufferer. I mean, okay, if you compare the reactions of two people with allergies of a comparable severity, yes, their symptoms will be similar, but I do think it feels different.

For me, I can tell straight away I've eaten something I shouldn't have. (Unless it's a "trace", in which case it takes longer to register.) The only way I can describe it is like eating 'death', which makes little sense. I recognise the allergen, I know what's happening and my immediate reaction is to get it out.

If I've eaten something bad, I try to spit it out, cough it up, just get it out of me. I don't throw up, but I do try to cough up anything that's close to the top of my throat.

I have a compulsion to brush my teeth to get the taste of 'death' away - doesn't help massively with stopping the reaction, but it helps to take away the feeling of 'sick'.

If it's severe enough, my throat starts to swell up and I'm very calm. I have breathing difficulties and I know at that stage, I need adrenaline or I'm gone. I have to either stab myself with an epipen or go to hospital (which is much nicer, because adrenaline drips don't hurt and epipens have a bloody huge needle on them).

I'm obviously not recommending not using an epipen if you have one, but you do get caught out sometimes. I've only ever had to go to hospital as an emergency patient for an allergic reaction twice in my life - once when I was tiny and I had my first reaction and once a few years back when I was in France on a Sunday. One trip every two decades isn't bad.

It's really hard to describe, actually. I know I'm dying, just really slowly. I mean, with an epipen or an adrenaline drip, I know I'll recover in only a few hours. But without either, I know my throat will swell up to the point I'll stop breathing and I'll die. You do sort of become really blase to the possibility of death by allergy - I guess you have to, as a coping strategy.

The one thing I will say, is if your son has a peanut allergy, chances are, he'll have an allergy to every other nut. So until you get him tested, be very careful with what you feed him. Due to his age, I would suggest it's kinder removing all nuts from the house.

My reaction is not severe that I can't be in the same room as nuts, but I can smell them so strongly and they smell of 'death' to me. I really don't like it.

It's not just eating you have to worry about - eating nuts can speed up the reaction of a nut allergy sufferer, but touching them can be bad too. I once lived with an absolute cow who didn't take my allergy seriously and didn't clean up properly in the kitchen after baking a walnut cake. I touched the work surface, rubbed my eyes (I'd just got up) and then my eyes swelled shut.

When your son gets older, he'll be able to avoid nuts with ease, but until he's of that age, I really would suggest not bringing nuts into the household. There's not a scrap of difference you can make to the outside world, but you can keep his house as his 'safe place'.

Good luck with the tests. I know it must be scary seeing your son have a reaction, but now you know what to do if it happens again. I have to admit, every time I've had a severe reaction, I've felt 'fine' (well, sick, obviously, but it hasn't upset me because I've known I've been given the right drugs for me and I'll get better quickly) but really awful for the people who have been with me. I think it's much worse to watch a reaction than to have one.