August 2014 Moms
shevaCC
member
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Food allergy PSA: Liquid Benadryl
shevaCC
member
For those of you starting solids, a quick request that you make sure you have liquid Benadryl at home. If you discover that your child, like mine, has a life threatening food allergy, you won't want to wait for your DH to speed to the pharmacy. I won't go into details but that was the scariest day of my life so far and had we been prepared it might've been a little less scary.
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Re: Food allergy PSA: Liquid Benadryl
DS born 8.11.14
BFP #2: 9.14.16, EDD: 5.24.17
I hope LO is ok I'm sorry you had to go through that.
More details below... Skip if it might upset you (though everything is fine now)
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DD (my 2.5 year old) is severely allergic to peanuts. We gave her peanut butter twice when she was a bit over a year old. The first exposure wasn't noteworthy but the second she broke out in hives, her face swelled, she started panickedly crying, then later started vomiting. It's not something you could've missed. DH rushed to the store for Benadryl and I called her pedi. While waiting for a call back she kept getting worse so I called 911. Her symptoms were starting to recede very slowly when the paramedics arrived. They came but did not administer epinephrine (they should have). I stupidly decided to not have them take her to the ER -- we live 40 minutes from the closest hospital which is why I didn't take her there in the first place. DH got home with the Benadryl and the pedi called back with the proper dose. I was just starting to calm down when DD started vomiting and her symptoms came flooding back. We gave more Benadryl and thankfully she was ok.
We later started seeing an allergist who explained that we were lucky DD's body naturally produced enough adrenaline to reverse the allergic reaction. That the paramedics should have administered epinephrine (artificial adrenaline). And that it's common for allergic reactions to happen in two phases. Immediately after exposure then again 45 minutes to an hour later.
Today we strictly avoid all peanuts and tree nuts (she tested allergic to walnuts too) and carry liquid Benadryl plus two epi pens with us wherever we go. Food allergies are challenging in a lot of ways -- we rarely go out to eat, read the ingredient labels of EVERYTHING, and we often bring our own food for DD, even to birthday parties, etc. But they can be managed and are becoming a bit easier to deal with as they get that much more common.
I've had to do a ton of research since finding out about DD's allergy so feel free to ask any questions you might have if you want to know more.
Benadryl is very fast acting to reverse allergic reactions. However, if a reaction is severe enough (anaphylactic) Benadryl isn't enough. In those cases epinephrine is given. For people with known severe allergies, epinephrine is often given before knowing how severe the reaction is since it's more effective the earlier it's given and the side effects are less risky than the allergy.
The dosing is based on weight, so your local pharmacist or pedi should be able to give you the dosage
The only thing we're doing differently with DS is testing for a peanut allergy at 6 months and, if negative, introducing peanuts early. Current research suggests early introduction to allergens reduces incidence of food allergy and siblings have a much greater risk of also being allergic. So we're working with DD's allergist to minimize DS's risk as best we can. We'll probably give him peanut butter in the ER parking lot since I'm paranoid... Oh, and not introducing new foods within an hour of bedtime.
The propensity for allergies does run in families but the specific allergies tend vary. Neither of us have food allergies but both have seasonal/pet allergies. I did eat peanuts during pregnancy but DD still has the allergy. You can reduce the risks but can't bring them to zero. But it's possible to have a full and happy life with a food allergy thankfully. Just a lot of things others take for granted become much more stressful.
@RoccoBabyK, I hope that answers your question. My pedi doesn't know much about food allergies so if yours doesn't have answers you may need to speak to an allergist.