We've got a peanut challenge in two weeks. My nearly 11-year-old has never eaten peanut. We've avoided it because of blood test results. We feell like it's time to find out the truth.
Our allergist suggested not using actual peanuts for the challenge as they can scratch the throat and cause confusion over possible allergic symptoms. I plan to bake something with peanut butter, however the allergist said it needs to be "a substantial amount". I'm thinking of putting peanut butter in my chocolate chocolate chip cookies. I also considered making peanut butter type candies.
I'd love to hear your suggestions!
Showing posts with label food challenges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food challenges. Show all posts
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Food Challenge: A Distress Signal
I'm still feeling damaged as I write this post. The trauma of Monday’s food challenge still lingers. It began innocently enough with the allergist saying, “Let’s do a food challenge for egg.”
Great idea, thought the parents. Our nine-year old called the scheduled challenge “the day I’m going to die”.
It’s hard to explain to a child that they should eat a food they’ve been told could make them very sick. We really worked hard to manage his anxiety. We’d been through food challenges with him before, but he’s too young to remember. We explained, and the doctor re-explained, the process. A tiny amount of egg would be given, with increasing amounts over five ingestions. We would wait 20 minutes between each ingestion to see if there would be a reaction.
The hard part was separating the anxiety symptoms from physical symptoms. The first level- no problem. After the second ingestion, he asked if his tongue was swelling. We said no, doctor said no, we proceeded. On to level 3. He asked if there was something on the side of his lip. He thought it felt funny. Nothing there. Proceed to level 4. He said it was hard to breathe. We called the nurse. Breathing fine. His heart rate was up, but everyone thought that was due to anxiety. For the final ingestion, he had to eat the rest of the egg. There were tears and “I hate this. I don’t want to do this.” Doctor came in and said that all was going really well and she expected he’d be able to eat eggs on a regular basis. He forced it down and we waited. A minute later, he vomited a little. Everyone studied the projectile and determined it was mucous. No problem...for a few minutes.
Things began to go downhill and then gathered a fierce pace for a fast descent. He started scratching his back. A little red, no problem. A few minutes later, there was a hive. We wait. Soon, another hive on his stomach. The nurse brought in Benadryl. We wait. Soon he began scratching furiously- all over- and said he felt like he was going to be sick. His skin turned bright red and become rough. Eczema everywhere. He looked really bad. Is there anything more painful than watching your child suffer?
The doctor gave him Zyrtec and a steroid. Minutes later, violent vomiting. The egg came up, but so did the medicine. Apparently the Benadryl had enough time to start to work because over the next hour the skin symptoms started to recede a bit. After four hours with strict instructions to avoid egg, we went home. We had more steroids and antihistamines to give throughout the next 12 hours.
Amazingly, he looked like himself again the following morning.
“That was the worst day of my life,” he said the next day. I remember a few rougher days in his early years, but for him, I agree, this was the worst.
We did learn some things, though:
He now really understands what an allergic reaction is and how he feels when it happens.
I would do a single or double blind challenge IF we ever do a challenge for him again. With an older child who is anxious already, it would be best if the child did not know if they were getting the food or a placebo.
We know without a doubt, that eggs need to be avoided.
He was already dealing with spring allergy symptoms, so we also learned not to schedule a challenge during a season of allergy symptoms.
So, I lost some faith in medical science this week. When it comes to food allergies, we know that skin tests results are often unreliable and that blood test results have a lot of false positives. The true test is a food challenge, but isn’t there a better way to do this? No one should have to go through this- especially our children. I’m still upset, but I know over time this sadness will turn into action. We need better diagnostic tools for food allergy. We must keep pushing education and awareness which will result in more funding and more research. We can do better. I know we can.
Great idea, thought the parents. Our nine-year old called the scheduled challenge “the day I’m going to die”.
It’s hard to explain to a child that they should eat a food they’ve been told could make them very sick. We really worked hard to manage his anxiety. We’d been through food challenges with him before, but he’s too young to remember. We explained, and the doctor re-explained, the process. A tiny amount of egg would be given, with increasing amounts over five ingestions. We would wait 20 minutes between each ingestion to see if there would be a reaction.
The hard part was separating the anxiety symptoms from physical symptoms. The first level- no problem. After the second ingestion, he asked if his tongue was swelling. We said no, doctor said no, we proceeded. On to level 3. He asked if there was something on the side of his lip. He thought it felt funny. Nothing there. Proceed to level 4. He said it was hard to breathe. We called the nurse. Breathing fine. His heart rate was up, but everyone thought that was due to anxiety. For the final ingestion, he had to eat the rest of the egg. There were tears and “I hate this. I don’t want to do this.” Doctor came in and said that all was going really well and she expected he’d be able to eat eggs on a regular basis. He forced it down and we waited. A minute later, he vomited a little. Everyone studied the projectile and determined it was mucous. No problem...for a few minutes.
Things began to go downhill and then gathered a fierce pace for a fast descent. He started scratching his back. A little red, no problem. A few minutes later, there was a hive. We wait. Soon, another hive on his stomach. The nurse brought in Benadryl. We wait. Soon he began scratching furiously- all over- and said he felt like he was going to be sick. His skin turned bright red and become rough. Eczema everywhere. He looked really bad. Is there anything more painful than watching your child suffer?
The doctor gave him Zyrtec and a steroid. Minutes later, violent vomiting. The egg came up, but so did the medicine. Apparently the Benadryl had enough time to start to work because over the next hour the skin symptoms started to recede a bit. After four hours with strict instructions to avoid egg, we went home. We had more steroids and antihistamines to give throughout the next 12 hours.
Amazingly, he looked like himself again the following morning.
“That was the worst day of my life,” he said the next day. I remember a few rougher days in his early years, but for him, I agree, this was the worst.
We did learn some things, though:
He now really understands what an allergic reaction is and how he feels when it happens.
I would do a single or double blind challenge IF we ever do a challenge for him again. With an older child who is anxious already, it would be best if the child did not know if they were getting the food or a placebo.
We know without a doubt, that eggs need to be avoided.
He was already dealing with spring allergy symptoms, so we also learned not to schedule a challenge during a season of allergy symptoms.
So, I lost some faith in medical science this week. When it comes to food allergies, we know that skin tests results are often unreliable and that blood test results have a lot of false positives. The true test is a food challenge, but isn’t there a better way to do this? No one should have to go through this- especially our children. I’m still upset, but I know over time this sadness will turn into action. We need better diagnostic tools for food allergy. We must keep pushing education and awareness which will result in more funding and more research. We can do better. I know we can.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Food Challenges
Did you get to see Nightline last week when they featured food allergies and food challenges?
It's a heart-wrenching story about a 5-year-old who has been fed through a feeding tube for the past 2 years since he seemed to be allergic to everything. The piece implies that food challenges offer a new way to control food allergies, which is a mis-leading portrayl. Hopefully people will read the article and watch the video to understand what a food challenge is, and what it isn't.
We're visiting the allergiest Friday for an egg challenge. We haven't done a food challenge in over 5 years. There are many emotions associated with a food challenge-excitement in possibly being able to introduce a new food, fear that something will go wrong, anxiety about the process...
I'm making scrambled eggs and french toast to take to the office. My son has really been looking forward to eating french toast and I've been stumped over how to make it egg-free. Anyway, on Friday, he'll at least get one tiny bite of it. My hope is that he'll be able to eat the whole thing and then come home for a towering plate of golden, crisply-fried, cinnamon-sugar french toast.
Whoops! I just drooled on my keyboard.
It's a heart-wrenching story about a 5-year-old who has been fed through a feeding tube for the past 2 years since he seemed to be allergic to everything. The piece implies that food challenges offer a new way to control food allergies, which is a mis-leading portrayl. Hopefully people will read the article and watch the video to understand what a food challenge is, and what it isn't.
We're visiting the allergiest Friday for an egg challenge. We haven't done a food challenge in over 5 years. There are many emotions associated with a food challenge-excitement in possibly being able to introduce a new food, fear that something will go wrong, anxiety about the process...
I'm making scrambled eggs and french toast to take to the office. My son has really been looking forward to eating french toast and I've been stumped over how to make it egg-free. Anyway, on Friday, he'll at least get one tiny bite of it. My hope is that he'll be able to eat the whole thing and then come home for a towering plate of golden, crisply-fried, cinnamon-sugar french toast.
Whoops! I just drooled on my keyboard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)