Friday, November 14, 2008
The Allergist
This morning we drove down to Mount Sinai Hospital's Jaffe Food Allergy Institute. One particular doctor, Scott Sicherer, got recommended to me a couple of times, and while we weren't able to get an appointment with him (he's booked till May 2009) we did see a young colleague of his.
Both sets of grandparents (and maybe us, too) were still hoping that maybe somehow Tashi was choking, not having an anaphylactic reaction, but after talking to the doctor he said it was pretty unequivocal that it was a severe allergy, especially since it was peanut butter, not peanuts, and such a small amount.
He took our history and agreed that the research on what effect maternal diet has (to peanut or not to peanut) is evenly split. He allowed his own wife to eat peanuts while pregnant. He said most peanut-allergic kids have backgrounds like ours, with slight allergies only--one parent gets hay fever in the fall (me) and the other has a little eczema in the winter (husband). Parents who are both peanut-allergic are unlikely to have a peanut-allergic child. It sounds like there's just a cocktail of triggers and factors that can set off a reaction, with seemingly no rhyme or reason. It's like a perfect storm of allergy.
Tashi did a skin test for soy and egg, which took 10 minutes. The good news is that soy isn't a problem. The bad news is that she seems to have a slight egg allergy (to the whites). The blood test that we also did and which we'll get results for next week will let us know how strong it is--if, for instance, we have to restrict her eating baked goods that contain eggs. We'll also find out how bad her allergy is to peanuts and tree nuts. If she starts out super-allergic, chances are she will remain so the rest of her life; only one in five kids grows out of it. Sesame is another potential allergen. If you have one food allergy, you're more likely to have another, even though there is no outward connection among nuts, eggs, and sesame. Fortunately milk seems to be fine, especially as she loves her string cheese. While Waipo was here, she'd take a bite, give it to Waipo to further unwrap, take another bite, and hand it over again.
The institute under Hugh Sampson (who is constantly quoted about allergies) is currently testing two peanut vaccines on adults and they will next be tried on children age 12 and above. Speaking above the din of Tashi being wailing upset (it was a rough morning for her), the doctor said there's a chance there could be a vaccine trial for younger kids by the time she is of school age. The more I poke around researching (I have been trying to restrain myself, it's just too scary) the more I see news like this: that food allergies have risen 18 percent in the past decade among U.S. children. Peanut allergies have doubled.
We got a lot of handouts to read, and some recommendations for additional reading. Until this happened to Tashi, I had never really believed that peanuts could be so deadly--from inhaling the dust or kissing someone who just had a PB&J sandwich. It's a huge learning curve to make people understand just how serious it is. (I will also fully admit right now that this whole thing has just exacerbated my control-freak tendencies. Watch out!) It'll get tougher as she gets older, too, and is sharing food with other kids. We plan on getting the Food Allergies for Dummies book and having our families read it, too.
UPDATE: I appreciate Ahgong's comment about the eggs maybe being a false positive or extremely mild--he's right that we've experienced no problems with any vaccinations, including the two-part flu shot we just did. That would be a relief, so fingers crossed. The other thing I wanted to mention is that in response to my own questions and from Ginny and others about how Tashi became allergic to peanuts--the short answer is they, the science powers that be, have no idea. That's what's so scary, and unfair-seeming. I wouldn't wish my worst enemy the experience we had.
Peanut allergies, while they have doubled, are still relatively rare, at nearly 1 in every 100 kids. My advice to parent friends is to take that infant CPR class and, to be 100 percent safe, give your baby peanut butter at the doctor's office when you're ready, during a regular well-baby visit. Even if you have no food allergy history... look at us! It sounds crazy and paranoid, but why risk it?
Both sets of grandparents (and maybe us, too) were still hoping that maybe somehow Tashi was choking, not having an anaphylactic reaction, but after talking to the doctor he said it was pretty unequivocal that it was a severe allergy, especially since it was peanut butter, not peanuts, and such a small amount.
He took our history and agreed that the research on what effect maternal diet has (to peanut or not to peanut) is evenly split. He allowed his own wife to eat peanuts while pregnant. He said most peanut-allergic kids have backgrounds like ours, with slight allergies only--one parent gets hay fever in the fall (me) and the other has a little eczema in the winter (husband). Parents who are both peanut-allergic are unlikely to have a peanut-allergic child. It sounds like there's just a cocktail of triggers and factors that can set off a reaction, with seemingly no rhyme or reason. It's like a perfect storm of allergy.
Tashi did a skin test for soy and egg, which took 10 minutes. The good news is that soy isn't a problem. The bad news is that she seems to have a slight egg allergy (to the whites). The blood test that we also did and which we'll get results for next week will let us know how strong it is--if, for instance, we have to restrict her eating baked goods that contain eggs. We'll also find out how bad her allergy is to peanuts and tree nuts. If she starts out super-allergic, chances are she will remain so the rest of her life; only one in five kids grows out of it. Sesame is another potential allergen. If you have one food allergy, you're more likely to have another, even though there is no outward connection among nuts, eggs, and sesame. Fortunately milk seems to be fine, especially as she loves her string cheese. While Waipo was here, she'd take a bite, give it to Waipo to further unwrap, take another bite, and hand it over again.
The institute under Hugh Sampson (who is constantly quoted about allergies) is currently testing two peanut vaccines on adults and they will next be tried on children age 12 and above. Speaking above the din of Tashi being wailing upset (it was a rough morning for her), the doctor said there's a chance there could be a vaccine trial for younger kids by the time she is of school age. The more I poke around researching (I have been trying to restrain myself, it's just too scary) the more I see news like this: that food allergies have risen 18 percent in the past decade among U.S. children. Peanut allergies have doubled.
We got a lot of handouts to read, and some recommendations for additional reading. Until this happened to Tashi, I had never really believed that peanuts could be so deadly--from inhaling the dust or kissing someone who just had a PB&J sandwich. It's a huge learning curve to make people understand just how serious it is. (I will also fully admit right now that this whole thing has just exacerbated my control-freak tendencies. Watch out!) It'll get tougher as she gets older, too, and is sharing food with other kids. We plan on getting the Food Allergies for Dummies book and having our families read it, too.
UPDATE: I appreciate Ahgong's comment about the eggs maybe being a false positive or extremely mild--he's right that we've experienced no problems with any vaccinations, including the two-part flu shot we just did. That would be a relief, so fingers crossed. The other thing I wanted to mention is that in response to my own questions and from Ginny and others about how Tashi became allergic to peanuts--the short answer is they, the science powers that be, have no idea. That's what's so scary, and unfair-seeming. I wouldn't wish my worst enemy the experience we had.
Peanut allergies, while they have doubled, are still relatively rare, at nearly 1 in every 100 kids. My advice to parent friends is to take that infant CPR class and, to be 100 percent safe, give your baby peanut butter at the doctor's office when you're ready, during a regular well-baby visit. Even if you have no food allergy history... look at us! It sounds crazy and paranoid, but why risk it?
posted by shisoneko at
7:25 PM
1 Comments
1 Comments:
Since Tashi did not have allergic reaction to the egg in the past and did not have problem with immunizations, in addition the skin test is less reliable than RAST, thus her allergy with the egg is questionable.
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