phantom allergy: what to say
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Anonymous
| I've accidentally injected myself with epinephrine (I'm not allergic; it was my son's Auvi-Q- long story) and I just felt jumpy and jittery for an hour or so, like I'd had too much coffee. |
Anonymous
Why would YOU assume the father allows his son nuts behind the mother's back just to spite her & encourages her to lie to her about it? This Ian't to say the mother is necessarily crazy. That & the father being "horrid" aren't the only 2 options (though either is a possibility, I guess).Perhaps the boy was able to sneak peanut butter or another nut product while with his father & the father found out about it & was highly concerned (& even got him medical attention) until he saw the child had no reaction & had outgrown the allergy (& had this confirmed by a doctor)? Maybe he told the mother what happened but, since nut allergies are so serious, she is nonetheless still afraid to allow him nuts & tells other parents not to give them to him but knows the father disagrees with this & allows him to have nuts? Maybe the child was routinely tested to see if he had outgrown his allergy & at one point the tests shows he has, in fact outgrown the allergy so his dad lets him have nuts but the mother is still too afraid to allow this & still tells others he is allergic to prevent a potential reaction even though she knows one would be highly unlikely at this point (again, understandable that she might still have this fear, given how deadly nut allergies can be) but knows the dad disagrees & allows him nuts (also understandable if it has been confirmed that the child no longer has a nut allergy, particularly since the father has likely seen with his own eyes that the child has no reaction after eating them )? Sometimes parents disagree on things & allow their children to do different things. This doesn't necessarily mean that one is crazy or the other is horrid & encourages the child to lie or hide things. |
Anonymous
IT is likely not the chocolate but some other ingredient, like nuts, that were prepared on the same equipment. |
Anonymous
My friend is an ER physician and she said that people often accidently hold the pen backwards and so they inject into their own thumb instead of the patient's thigh. FYI you need to go to the ER if you do this because the thumb is too small for all of that constricting medicine and you could lose your thumb if you ignore it. (Sorry for a tangent but wanted to say this because I don't think most people know this!) |
Anonymous
This. You should tell the mom what he did and say that maybe he is outgrowing it. |
Anonymous
PP here. He eats peanut butter and jelly every day! Also, he's had peanuts with no reaction. It is really concerning to me, wondering what it could have been. One of the breakouts came on with homemade cookies with only 3 ingredients: oatmeal, bananas, and chocolate chips. Oats and bananas have never caused a reaction on their own. It's frustrating. I can understand if a parent wants to be cautious especially at somebody else's house. |
Anonymous
This makes no sense. The boy said he was ALLOWED nuts by his father, not that he sneaks them. How would you feel if you were afraid your kid would suffer a fatal reaction to nuts and were bending over backward to avoid it, only to have the other parent decide he can give him nuts any time? If he is eating nuts regularly at his father's then he is not allergic and the mother would calm down -- unless she is not being told, which seems clear from the OP's follow up post. He begged her not to tell his mother. He is clearly eating nuts behind his mother's back, with the permission of his father, and lying to her. I don't see how that is a healthy dynamic. Sounds horrid. |
Anonymous
PP here. Didn't know that about the thumb, so thanks for that. My accidental injection was in the outer thigh, where it's supposed to go. I was totally distracted and thought it was the trainer that my son brought to me, so I took the opportunity to show him yet again how to use it. Only when I felt the needle in my thigh did I realize that it was NOT the trainer. Ouch. It hurt! |
Anonymous
Not PP, but it makes perfect sense. Maybe the kid DID sneak nuts at his dad's but the dad found out & saw he had no reaction so NOW he allows the child to have nuts. The mother might be fully aware of this but is still too afraid to allow the child nuts when he is with her. |
Anonymous
| I have two tree nut/pnut allergic kids. My kids are paranoid around food that I haven't given them. No way in heck you should feel guilty for not supervising 9 year olds to that level. Every kid I know with allergies does not test it out to see what might happen so you had no way of knowing this family is not the norm. Mine even started questioning the grandparents before eating food there. My kids would never ever touch a food that they knew might harm them. One of mine has decent numbers to take a food challenge and he wont because he does not want the reaction. Once was enough for him! which says there is more to this story than op is in on. I would agree that I am more comfortable letting my kids try new foods around me than I would someone else so in that case I would avoid the suspected trigger food at daycare or elsewhere. try to feel out the dad (something casual like we loved having her kid spend the night with us. it was our first time with epis. how did you discover his allergies) and see what he says. |
Anonymous
Epipens are very safe to give. It is very unlikely that it will harm you. It is much safer to give epipens on exposure to a known allergen than to wait and say as is what happened to poor Natalie Giorgi who was 13 and had a "mild" peanut allergy. She had never had a strong reaction or anaphylaxis. By mistake, she ate one bite of a dessert with peanut in it. She found her parents, and they administered benadryl, then waited to see if her reaction would go away. Her father and mother were both there. Her father was a physician with an epipen at the ready. Natalie was feeling so well, that she wanted to go dance with her friends. After 20 minutes, she began vomiting. Her father gave her an epipen, then another. He even broke into a locked cabinet to give her a third dose, but it was too late. She went into cardiac arrest and died in her mother's arms. Her last words were, "I'm sorry." Please please for the love of God, remember Natalie and administer the epipen on ingestion of a known allergen. My approach used to be - benadryl, then wait and see. That all changed with Natalie's death. Now my plan is immediately epipen on exposure, then call 911. |
Anonymous
\\ Epinephrine is safe. It is extremely unlikely that it would hurt the boy other than make him a bit jittery. Don't feel hesitant to give the epipen in the case of exposure to an allergen. "Epinephrine is a life-saving medication in the treatment of anaphylaxis. This study demonstrated the relative safety of its use in 116 consecutive patients treated for acute anaphylaxis," write Larry Posner, MD, from the University of California at San Francisco, and colleagues in the poster. "The use of epinephrine for anaphylaxis should only be limited due to cardiac or other contraindicated conditions." The investigators contend that epinephrine, although the treatment of choice for anaphylaxis, is frequently underused, possibly because of the fear of adverse cardiac events. To determine the safety profile of epinephrine administration in the acute setting, they conducted a retrospective chart review of 116 consecutive patients who received epinephrine in an allergy office between 1999 and 2004. The review included data on adverse events and vital signs, both of which were monitored every five to 10 minutes for a minimum of 30 to 90 minutes after epinephrine administration. A total of 116 patients received 131 epinephrine injections. The authors found that of 110 evaluable patients, 72% of those younger than 30 years and 68% of those older than 30 years had postepinephrine heart rates of fewer than 100 beats per minute (bpm). Only one patient (younger than 30 years old) had a heart rate greater than 130 bpm. Similarly, systolic blood pressure stayed between 80 and 140 mm Hg after epinephrine administration in 91% of the younger patients and in 59% of the older patients. No patient had a systolic pressure higher than 182 mm Hg at any time. Diastolic pressures were in the range of 60 to 90 mm Hg in 78% of the younger patients and in 91% of those older than 30 years. The most commonly reported adverse effect was jitteriness, which occurred in 19% of all patients, followed by headache, palpitation, and nausea (3%), and vomiting (1% -- one patient). There were no serious adverse events, all elevations of vital signs were transient, all patients responded to epinephrine, and all were able to return home. |
Anonymous
No, it is safe to use. It is very extremely unlikely to cause any other side effect than just jitteryness and a slightly elevated heart rate. It is ok to give. This is why that even though my dd is 8, she has still never had a drop off playdate. At this rate, maybe she never will. |
Anonymous
| Love all this DCUM ridiculousness! People love a good conspiracy theory. Munchausen by proxy is more rare than peanut allergies and the liklihood is that the kid has or had a legitimate allergy. |
Anonymous
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I would tell them mom what happened (without suggesting she's crazy or a liar or the Dad is evil or the parents are engaged in pettiness or anything at all beyond the bare facts you know). it seems like the kid didn't have reaction. GREAT, that's good news. there are about a billion explanations for this, some of which are that parents are variations on crazy, and some of which are not. a couple of scenarios:
- kids really do grow out of these things. my niece had a near-death experience with peanuts when she was a wee thing, couldn't breathe, and was hospitalized and everything. doc said she might grow out of it but to keep away from peanuts until she could do a controlled test again in a couple of years. after the bad scare, mom and dad were hyper-controlling about the peanuts for a couple of years. but when niece got into a jar of peanut butter at a neighbor's house less than a year later, NOTHING happened. mom and dad were thrilled, ecstatic, but the pediatrician suggested holding off a little longer. so, they kept the epi-pen handy and avoided peanuts sensibly until she was "cleared" for peanut allergy a year later. - kid might have really mild reaction that the doctor is worried might turn into something more serious. another friend had a kid who got a rash an hour or two after she had nut products. no big deal for anyone and the kid loved nutbutters, but the doctor said these things sometimes become serious if you keep exposing the kid. that they can become MORE sensitized rather than less. Kid is still not allowed peanuts some years later, on medical advice, but loves to cheat whenever he can get his hands on pb. |