Anyones children had bad reaction from anything other than eating peanuts

Amanda S., welcome! [img]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/smile.gif[/img]

My 7 year old PA son Jesse has now had 5 PA reactions. His first one was at 18 months of age where he ate a chocolate bar with peanuts in it.

His second reaction, his first anaphylactic one, was when he ate pb on toast at the next door neighbour's.

His third reaction, second anaphylactic was where he merely touched a pb rice krispie square to his lips. It did not enter his mouth. He did not take a bite of it. I consider this a contact reaction, but because it was his lips involved rather than say his hands, I consider it different than a regular (if you will) contact reaction. He almost died.

His fourth reaction was a hive only reaction to cross-contaminated cake mix that I had made cupcakes with.

His fifth reaction, his first one in four years of going to school, was a contact reaction. He either touched peanut residue in the breakfast room we were in at the school or in the hall on the way to his classroom. This reaction was also anaphylactic.

Sorry, I'm the first one responding to your thread and I don't want to scare you.

What I would like to say is that there is a wealth of information here that can prepare you and your child for him entering school this Fall. You can decide what it is you feel you need, for your son, to keep him safe in school.

You will find information, support, caring, concern and encouragement here like you will find no other place, very often times not even in *real* life. No question is ever too stupid to ask.

When your son had his reaction at 20 months, what was it from (i.e., an actual peanut, peanut product, "may contain")?

Look at the comfort zone that you have in place for your family now. Obviously it's worked since your son was 20 months of age because he hasn't had a reaction since. I would take that into consideration when trying to figure out what it is you want from the school as far as your son (i.e., do you want a peanut free classroom, etc.?).

Statistics have shown that at least 50% of children who have experienced an anaphylactic reaction before entering school will have a reaction within one year of going to school. This was not the case for my son at all.

He almost died six months before entering school. I was scared to death to send him to school. After our recent scare with his reaction, and contact at that to residue, at school in December month, I'm scared all over again.

We're all here to help you figure this out. I have received more support on PA.com than I have received anywhere else in my life. I have also received more information here than I have received from doctors (including allergists). Our Schools section is quite active with different PA parents trying to figure out how to safely get their child into school.

The one other thing you may want to consider is that this is the first time your child will be away from YOU (I'm not clear if he has gone to pre-school or is in day-care), but away from you for a good portion of the day, week, year.

I'm glad you found PA.com. I continue, to this day, to be thankful that PA.com is here.
I've found that little blips (and sometimes not little, like Jesse's reaction in December month) come along that you don't expect because you have your comfort zone, you have your written school plan in place, and yet stuff happens. And people here really do care.

Aside from scaring the bejesus out of you (pardon my language), I hope I did help as well.

Again, welcome, and best wishes! [img]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/smile.gif[/img]

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When my son was a baby, we changed detergents (to Tide) and he got severe eczema all over and began wheezing and his first bout with croup and was in repiratory distress for some time until we figured out that it could be the Tide. We eliminated Tide, rewashed everything and his eczema cleared up. When he visited Grandma's, it started again. She used Tide, too. This was long before the PA dx.

My son constantly battled asthma from mild to severe while consuming peanut containing products over the first five years of his life. It wasn't until the last incident which had us at the emergency clinic for five hours that we got fed up with our insurance, switched and went to an allergist. He has not wheezed since.

My daughter has reacted to Banana Boat Baby Boat SPF 36 Hypoallergenic with hives all over her body. She is only allergic to peanuts and nothing else. She also reacted to exposure to peanuts and crackers in the hospital and again to touching her face with a peanut (not eating it). None of them anaphylactic, thank God.

My son does not go to school anymore. He is home schooled. This last week he had poison ivy so bad it got infected. I took him to the doctors. I don't know what he touched there, but he had to have touched something and then touched his eyelid, because while we were there a huge hive developed on his eye lid right in front of the doctor! We gave him benadryl and it went away, but indeed, PA people can be allergic to contact from things, toys, desks, chairs or whatever that may have been touched by someone with peanut butter or oil on their fingers.

When my son did go to school, they had an 'allergy free' table which was supposedly kept peanut free and washed separately, etc. Despite my son's IEP (he is also autistic) they were inconsistent with remembering his PA, frequently didn't let him sit at the 'allergy free' table and didn't have an allergy protocol for his home room. If my child were like many PA kids here and airborne or severely contact allergic, I would have pulled my kid out of school within the first two weeks of him being there. It was a nightmare.

I'm not saying your school district will be like that. I pray you have a good experience and I definitely think that in MOST cases, it is worth fighting with the system when there are breakdowns to protect not just your child, but any future children to go through that school. In my case, with the issues concerning his autism and CAPD on top of the PA, it was a battle I wasn't up to waging.

And considering how well he's doing now, I don't regret it except that I might have been able to do something to make another PA mom's life easier!

~Melanie

My son (3 yo) had a reaction while in a shopping cart at the grocery store. He was sitting in the cart which must have had peanut residue on it and he broke out in hives and his hands and face swelled. We were only in the store for 5 minutes and he did not come in contact with anything else.
We are learning to live with his allergies. (Shopping w/o him)

Ants Mom...

One thing I do everywhere we go, is wipe down the shopping cart, restaurant tables etc. with a huggies wipe and so far so good. He got in one of those shopping carts at the store that have the front turned into a little car with a steering wheel, huge chocolate chip cookie in there when he went to get in. That one cookie is full of about four of his allergies. I wiped it down and nothing happened. Have you tried this?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but yes, absolutely my daughter has had reactions from things handled by other kids. I've had her arm break out in rash to the elbow from putting her hand in a puppet in a resale shop; go into a coughing fit or asthma attack playing with visibly grubby toys in waiting areas. She's gone into full anaphylactic shock once after playing in the McDonald's playplace while they were doing a PB McFlurry promotion or something -- she didn't eat anything untword so we figured it had to be contact with a spill in the structure. She's also had her throat close up while in a petfood store near an open bin of peanuts, and gone into severe asthma while in a room with peanut-covered donut holes at a preschool party.

Knowing this, we had worked with the school to make sure the other kids washed hands when they came in after lunch for afternoon kindergarten. Well, that's the way it was supposed to work, but if the kids took the time to wash their hands they might miss getting their favorite toy for free time. So by late in the year only the good little girls were still doing it. About this time last year my daughter got taken out of Kindergarten in an ambulance in full anaphylactic shock. I looked at the toys in the room (I had scrubbed them all at the beginning of the year) and you could scrape the grime off them with a fingernail.

After that, instead of improving safety, the school did everything it could to make us drop out, like making my daughter eat alone, and planning parties without her. It worked. We homeschool now.

Kay

Quote:Originally posted by Kay B: After that, instead of improving safety, the school did everything it could to make us drop out, like making my daughter eat alone, and planning parties without her. It worked. We homeschool now.

And I bet you don't regret the decision either, do you?

My son's preschool was really good (only 10 students and two teachers), but when he went to a private school for kindergarten, they did pretty much the same thing as your daughters school! We thought public school might be better, but it wasn't.

People always ask me "well, what about socialization?" My response is almost always something along the lines of, well, if you're child is being chastized, excluded, humiliated and in an unsafe situation, would you really think they are learning good socialization skills and put your child in imminent danger of death? I don't THINK so! [img]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/biggrin.gif[/img]

My son, also home schooled, has MUCH better socialization skills than the public school kids in our neighborhood. He doesn't care if kids his age laugh at him for playing with the younger kids or the teenagers in the neighborhood. He's happy and very well rounded socially.

~Melanie

[This message has been edited by MeCash (edited April 29, 2003).]

Hi Melanie,

Yes, homeschooling is absolutely the right choice for us. If I'd known it would be so easy and fun, I wouldn't have worried quite so much about starting it. The extra benefit (other than not living in fear every day) is that we can work at her level, which is consistantly two or three above where they were teaching her.

Still, I'm very angry it's not something we chose, but something we were forced to do. Our family can accept the sacrifices necessary to make homeschooling work; others can't, and what can they do? We went up through the Director of Elementary Ed and the school superintendent, and got nowhere.

We did pursue this with the Office for Civil Rights, and although they dutifully assigned us a case number and all, essentially their advice was to do a 504. (The school had been fighting against giving her one for a year and a half, but threw the offer of one after us after we withdrew our daughter from school.) Even though I doubt she'll be going back, I want to see what that school will come up with. I have a feeling they'll make a few foot-dragging, eye-rolling accommodations, knowing full well we'd be crazy to send her back there.

We're still considering legal action -- there *was* an injury that occured -- but emotionally I'm just not up to it now. I just don't think they'll change until they kill one of our kids.

Kay

My son had two contact reactions. Hives localized to area of contact. His dad ate peanuts then picked him up. A friend ate pbj before coming to visit and did not wash hands after eating. Touched my son's arm and hives appeared where touched.