Actually, i’m only really having a very slight humphf, which has been brought on by this evening’s trip to the doctors. Took Fran (itchy skin, mild eczema… joy) and achy ear plus Amelie too, who needed a once over, plus the nut thing. Worst thing about having 4 children is that they have to complain long and loud to get to the doctors – and on this occasion i waited till i had a job lot.
Fran hasn’t been able to hear in one ear and complained it was ringing a bit (not entirely the contradiction it sounds!) so i wanted to get her checked out and referred to ENT again if required. Turned out she just had an ear infection though – gawd knows how long she’s been moaning and just getting Sudafed and Calpol 🙁 *packs bag and hops aboard the guilt trip train*
Amelie was a longer story and i’m feeling slightly floored that instead of patting my knee, telling me not to over-react and sending us on our way, he immediately issued an Epipen and pointed out that it could come to nothing worse or become an allergy that is triggered by even remote contact, quite quickly. To be honest, i’ve been in denial for a week about it and i really wasn’t expecting the full blown ‘allergy’ roll out that we got 😥
*rewind ‘guilt for things that happened to my babies while in utero’ tape, press play and set to continuous loop* I just knew i was going to regret craving peanuts while pregnant with her one day 😥
I’m struggling, just at this moment, to work out how we impress upon her that this is potentially more serious than the milk one and that we can’t take any risks – nor can i quite believe that both the doctor and the pharmacist pointed out quite clearly that she couldn’t leave home without the Epipen and that the allergy was potentially a killer and the pen a livesaver 😥 I mean, i know that, but it’s a bit shocking to have it said to you, iykwim?
We’ve packed a little rucksack with antihistamine, pen, creams and inhalers and we’re all going to work at remembering it wherever we go, plus i’ve got to drill Max into understanding that in this situation it is gonig to be safer to over-react and give it, than under-react and leave it too late. Obviously i’ve got some reading to do so i know where i am with it. Let’s hope it never gets any worse 😥 maybe it was a one off – i think i was expecting to be told that though, it was just a shock when i wasn’t.
Otherwise, it was a good day; packed a load of parcels very early while the girls did guitar, reading, EC etc etc and then read them a story from SOTW. Though quite how you can go from Muhammed to Sinbad in the space of one chapter, i really don’t know. 🙄 Luckily we’ve got plenty of depth planned for Islam over the next few weeks. I’m going to hop over some chapters though and carry on so we do the crusades and so on rather than following the book and moving to China next – more relevant to our style to stick with a topic i think.
Finished up the day at Activity World for a good thrash out; Josie was particularly happy there today and i got an entire project planned out in note form while i was there, which was great. Must get back to going weekly so i get that time.
We’ve had a stew by Fran for tea, and now i’m going to work for a bit, mull over a few things and try to put my thoughts straight about an very unexpected – and rather shocking – meeting i had yesterday with someone from my past. I hadn’t ever expected to see her again and our lives have gone in desperately different directions over the last 8 years. I really handled the meeting badly, i just didn’t know what to say or how to act and i feel dreadfully bad about it, partly for her, partly for me but mostly for her daughter who i adore and who must have been hurt and disillusioned by how thrown i was. I need to work out if it is something i need to apologise for, or if perhaps it wasn’t as bad as i thought.
Gosh – life is never simple is it?
My sister was called “The Camel” at Uni because she always had the hump.
Thinking of you. Sounds like a tough sort of day emotionally.
((hugs))
I have to go back and do all the preliminaries for that with the nurse – Josie was being stroppy so it was all a tad fraught.
big hugs merry – you know you really could have rung me.Glad you have epipen. ALWAYS better to overreact in this instance. I am totally unconvinced by the peanut in utero thing really. and it isn’t necessarlily peanuts, but brazil nuts. [both my girls badgered the odd m and m, and SB has peanut butter, but we don;t have much here] lots of hugs, and magic wand to remove guilt [if only hey]
oh, and I think I know [maybe] who you mean, and if it was, being thrown seems likely. you have had a bad day, a tough month or 12, so can’t be expected to handle everything perfectly. most things better handled in retrospect.
must take baileys or something nice to hunstanton – chris can be in charge of all 6!
oh, and Thank GOD she is home educated, so you know she’ll be fine [think of all those dairy and nut free cakes we serve up, rather than choc and nut cookies!]
ooooooh bums.. I will read up and make sure I know stuff.. but my gut says.. fine.
I’m usually right about these things 😉
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x a kabillion
Thank you – am feeling thoroughly hugged 🙂
hugs from me too
but YAY to your GP. I had to really push our GP even for a referral to the allergy clinic. He thought it “could just be a one off to nothing in particular” – even after TWO trips to A&E in two weeks.
and I just knew I was going to regret eating crunchy nut when i was expecting K too 🙁
Tree nut allergies and peanut allergy are different things – so can’t imagine you eating peanuts had anything to do with anything. Glad you are going back for proper investigations – was wondering whether it was just cheaper for them to hand out epipens to all and sundry than actually do any testing!
A friend of ours has a peanut allergy and the first time he was round here with his little bag of tricks it was a bit unsettling, double-checking in my mnd that the peanut butter was safely away in a cupboard and no one was going to suddenly start smearing it everywhere!
Another little girl we met had an anaphylactic reaction to millk, but her family were really very laid back about it, to an extent that surprised me, they still had normal milk, butter etc for them, and she had her own stuff. (She would e.g. start showing allergic symptoms if someone spread butter and then touched her.) I suppose it was probably actually better for her in the long run to learn to avoid dairy and be safe than be in an artificially safe home environment.
Anyway, hope the tests turn out to show a tree nut allergy – surely a peanut allergy would have manifest by now?
oh, and did he talk about patch testing for bits and pieces??
“no one was going to suddenly start smearing it everywhere!” – i’d double take at that except i remember Buttercup with a garlic dip once! 😉
Thanks for the info on the tree nut thing, didn’t know that but have now made useful inroads into research 🙂
more hugs. can imagine.
epipens are wonderful, glad your GP is enlightened enough to go down the “just in case” route rather than the “wait and see” one. Hope the alergy testing comes up with some nice clear resuts for you I’m sure Amilie doesn’t need much reminding on avoiding nuts, you tend not to forget a reaction like that too quickly!
LOL! Yeah, she stank that night, didn’t she?
Hugs, it’s not nice. Hope you know more soon.
Sorry to hear of all this worry 🙁 I’m sure you’ll adjust to it but it must be a horrible shock.
Yeah sounds like it will feel like a nightmare for a while even if it ends up just being normal eventually. Hugs from me too.
oh, and tell Fran I think doing a stew for the family while she had an ear infection was pretty awesome!
I knew a little girl who ate something containing pistatios and her tongue and lips swelled up. My dh took her and her daddy to the hospital. She was 5 and it was the first time she had reacted. I remember being horrified that the doctors didn’t issue an Epipen once she had discharged, in fact they seemed to completely dismiss it as a one off and didn’t give the daddy any advice about avoiding nuts in the future. I think, as scary as it is right now, an over-reaction about a nut allergy is better then *that* kind of reaction.
Whilst it’s crap and it really is, it isn’t something to blame yourself over at all. I never gave up anything whilst pregnant and all of mine have eaten nuts since about 18 months old.
Might be worth getting people to think about the food they are bringing to Hunstanton. When pea was at nursey one of her little friends had a peanut allergy so obvious nut products were banned from lunch boxes just in case.
Ros,
I can blame myself for ANYTHING 😉 It’s a particular skil i have 🙂
I’ve made it known for holidays, plus i’ve got her a little wrist bracelet to remind people. Assuming it isn’t peanuts, hopefully it won’t be unbearable.
Sigh – i’m still waiting for Josie to come up with something to be complicated with… she’s the only person let with nothing to worry about!
There is no definite evidence that eating peanuts during pregnancy causes peanut allergy. (and as already said treenuts are not peanuts, peanuts are legumes).
Even if there was, beating yourself up about it now is not going to do any good, its cant be undone by feeling guilty, so its a waste of emotion.
I’ve been beating myself up for years and years that two of my boys are lactose intolerant because I don’t like (and therefore barely drink) milk. We can’t both be guilty can we? 😉 Time for me to put the whip away too I think.
Chin up sweetie, allergies are sods to deal with but your a good mum and you’ll be fine, so will she.
Hi my son has a nut allergy and carries an epipen since age 5. He has had 3 reactions ,Two before it was diagnosed, one to a sainsburys bought curry which had cashewnut oil in it and another to a brazil nut.The 3rd reaction was to a pasta sauce which had cashewnut oil in it.I was careless with this one, I bought a tomato based pasta sauce and it never occured to me that it may have nuts in it.
He avoids all nuts and he is 8 now and is very good at asking if something has nuts in it. My GP issued an epipen then we were refered for a consultant appointment and to see the paediatric dietician. Out of all the professionals the dietician gave us the best information. We found that labels were a problem because most say ” MAY contain nuts” or “made in a factory” which processes nuts. Basically the food manufacturers want to cover themselves.
We continued to buy the same products that he ate regularly and many of them said “May contain… or made in a factory with…..
I just read the ingrediants and make sure that there are no nuts in the actual product.
The other piece of advice is to carry an anti histamine like piriton syrup with you. I was told this is really your first line . There was a few times I wondered if Matthew was having a reaction to something. I gave piriton immediately .
It retrospect it wasnt a reaction to nuts he was having but I dont want to inject him everytime I have a panic! You can still obviously give the epipen too but its just another option while you stare at them weighing up should I or shouldn’t I.!
I know the worry about leaving home without an Epipen.(I have a severe bee allergy) I asked my GP for an extra one to keep in the car–that way I don’t have to worry about leaving home without it. Don’t forget to check the expiration dates and mark it on your calender to renew it on time. Hope she never needs it!
waah, reading all these comments is worrying me more now!!
Just when I thought we were getting used to everything, I find out people have epipens! K doesn’t have one,although this is supposed to be reviewed once she is school age. This is despite her having very scary reactions to nuts in the past. She should have been having another appointment with the consultant at the end of March but it was cancelled by the hospital a month or so ago “due to unforeseen circumstances”. I think I will be ringing them in the morning……….
I can’t believe she doesn’t! Definitely ring, it is very weird that you don’t. I just assumed you did.
It may be ok but double check that it’s ok to keep epipens in the car. We had kept some insulin in the glove box for a weekend but found the heat made it inactive. Not good.
yeah, O was wondering about the heat, but you could have one of those insulated thingies anyway which even out the temperatures. agre also with having some piriton about for not sure occasions.
and K really should have an epipen – go demanding to theGP, he can prescribe it too.