My daughter Mollie ends up getting a lot of press regarding her food allergies and involvement with my book The BugaBees, so for now, I’m here to give equal representation to her 3-year-old brother Max – the baby of the family and the apple of my eye! Max is “all boy” as they say, and worships Lightning McQueen, Thomas the Train and Curious George. He also has never been tested for food allergies and I’m thinking it’s about time I do some investigating.
Our doctor tells us because there are so many false-positive results in clinical testing alone, the best way to do so is to just give him peanuts, tree nuts, etc. If he has any sort of reaction, then a clinical test will confirm the presence of a food allergy. Sure. No problem. Except there are lots of problems I can envision, which is probably why I haven’t done anything about this in the last three years of Max’s life. :)
First, I am hyper-sensitive about bringing any peanut/tree nut products into our home, so I’m not really excited about doing a “food challenge” in our kitchen or anywhere else in our house for that matter.
Secondly, Mollie and Max are almost always together. I’m not really sure why I feel the need to protect her from my little experiment with him, but in this case, I feel like less is more. The less obvious it is that Max will be in the next room consuming foods she’s allergic to, the more comfortable I think she will feel in general. (Because lets face, 3-year-olds are not exactly pristine eaters. My kitchen floor and dinner table can prove it.)
Thirdly, WHAT IF HE HAS A HORRIBLE REACTION?!? Yes, I have multiple Epi-pens on hand but somehow, I can’t get psyched up to create a situation where I might very likely need to use one. Plus, we live a good 20 minutes from the nearest hospital, so it’s not looking like that will be happening anytime soon.
What do other parents do? I’m dying to know. For now I’m thinking I might just have to meet him in the back alley near our health care clinic with a Nutter Butter in hand and see what happens.
If a challange test in a medical setting is not be possable. I heard a friend joke that she would challage test in the parking lot of the hospital, outside emergency.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a friends house close to the hospital, with one parent present. Twenty minutes from hospital is to far away. Start with touching nuts, and I would get information about challage tests from doctor with the hopes he would do it in a hospital type setting.
We only test for milk at home because we know the reaction. We usually do it late morning on a Saturday or Sunday. My husband feeds her the milk product, and I stand by with the Benadryl. We didn't test peanuts at home. I plan to do that at the doctor's office before my daughter starts preschool just to see what will happen. It's very nerve racking. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI recently visited my allergist for blood testing because I wish to start a family in a couple of years and will like to know how to address the required issues towards my food allergies.
ReplyDeleteAfter receiving my blood test results which confirmed that I was no longer allergic to nuts, but strongly allergic to peanuts, my allergist advises against introducing peanuts and nuts to my future children before the age of 3, and asking for blood testing because of the severity of my peanuts allergy.