Bummer

sapphiremom13

Just diagnosed with almond (though the doctor said all tree nuts for now) and peanut.  DS is 20 months.  We have been living with a severe dairy allergy since 10 weeks, so allergy life isn't new to us, but I have to say I am really bummed out.  When he had the blood test at 10 weeks, he tested negative for peanuts.  He was never tested for tree nuts.  

I honestly believed we were there to rule peanut out- my son grabbed a cup with extremely hot/spicy peanut sauce and water.  Immediately he developed hives where the water hit, and his eyes were pretty much shut.  However, it was the exact same look he had after going to a splash pad last summer when he reacted to chlorine.  I really just thought it was his super sensitive skin reacting to the hot sauce- which let me tell you is VERY hot.  I was wondering about the almonds ever since we gave him Honey Nut Cheerios a few times awhile back and they didn't seem to agree with him.  

The positives:  almond was only a 5 on the skin test.  Milk reaction wasn't too bad- an 8.  In the past, he got a drop of milk on his skin and he got an orange sized hive, so when I saw the milk reaction, I have to say it wasn't too bad.  The peanut was 17.  Not sure how serious that seems.  My daughter has PB all.the.time and he's never had hives or anything of that nature.  

Any thoughts on the 17?  Do you think that's high? Any advice that I might not be aware of with just living with milk allergy would be appreciated too!  TIA.

Ncstatemom

I'm sorry...that does suck.  DD has a peanut allergy - totally unexpected and out of the blue - so I get it.  She didn't have a blood test, just a skin test so I don't have numbers to associate.  I figure we'll get those eventually.  What I do know is that the #'s for peanut allergy are pretty irrelevant...as in, your reaction could be mild with a huge number or severe with a low number.  That said, 17 sounds pretty "moderate" to me.  Not super high or low.  With a known reaction though, it doesn't matter. You have to treat peanut as a severe allergy regardless of numbers.  I'm sorry about the almond too...on the bright side, you would have probably avoided tree nuts anyway with a peanut allergy so that in itself, isn't that altering.  Could he be outgrowing the milk allergy though?  That would be great!

I can say that if you could focus on outgrowing the milk, peanut/tree nut is easier to manage. People are very aware of nuts, they are clearly marked and you will find ALOT of nut free options for kids.  Example:  DD was just invited to a place called Lil Chefs for a birthday where they basically cook a meal for the party.  You can imagine my horror.  However, I called the place just to see what the situation was, assuming there was just no way she was going to go.  Amazingly, the place actually uses no peanut/tree nuts because of allergies...so she can actually do this no problem.  Another example:  My office had a kids Christmas party last year...one of the activities was decorating cookies...the cookies provided were peanut/tree nut free.  

sapphiremom13

Thanks.  I was actually really excited that the doctor thinks it's possible that he can eat dairy in baked goods as soon as next year.  He did mention that we have already been living with one of the hardest to manage, so this won't be harder.  Those are great examples of the level of awareness, thanks for sharing.