Questions about vomiting

Milkmom,

The only way I suspected my son's peanut allergy was vomiting from Reese's Pieces. At 2 1/2 years, he had a Friendly's ice cream sundae, which my husband had ordered for him. I knew he didn't like PB pieces, but my husband didn't. As soon as he chewed it, he turned greenish and squinted his eyes. I knew I better get a towel ready, and it came out, but not excessively. He coughed for about 20 minutes afterward.

The second vomiting episode was two weeks before Halloween. He had once PB piece in his mouth, spit it out, and vomited profusely. Three times in five minutes with coughing afterward. His allergist said he was lucky. The vomiting got most of the allergen out of his body.

If something like this happens again, knowing what I know now, the epipen would definitely be administered with a trip the the ER. I would take the vomiting very seriously as a sign of a possible anaphylactic reaction. Hope this helps.

My son has never fully injested a peanut but had many reactions, some anaphylactic, to them (contact and in his mouth for less than two secs.) However, he did swallow three tiny pieces of cashews last year. His body was covered in hives, he was grabbing his throat and screaming that it hurt, excessive saliva was pouring from his mouth (first I was using a towel to wipe it away but then I gave up in desperation and put a bowl in front of him), and then came the vomitting. He vomitted profusely for about 15 minutes but then it went away. However, he also had diarrhea. Then his body went limp and he was lethargic. I am very lucky that he is still alive. I did not have Epi and I called the pediatricians office right away but it took them 20 minutes to return my call and even then they never told me to do anything. They said, "If he is breathing okay then he will be fine."

Anyway, yes, vomitting is part of an anaphylactic reaction. We have all been misinformed by doctors. You must remember that they have soooo many areas to be trained in that they don't have any real information about each area. My aunt is a doctor and she said they spent 20 minutes discussing allergies in med school.

I don't want anyone to think that this is an excuse for doctors to not be informed. It definately is NOT. But that is why it is important for us to inform them ourselves and to go to an allergist if we don't have all of our questions answered.

Milkmom,

Our daughter also vomited with her reaction. Nausea and vomitting are known symptoms of anaphylaxis, and our med techs and ER doc knew this. They gave our daughter an epi.