Egg allergy - 7.5 month old

[Kilicat]

Just looking for a little advice...

My DS (7.5 months) has a history of severe eczema which is currently under control and we think it might be a dairy allergy (but not totally sure yet). However, yesterday he tried egg for the first time and pretty instantly his lips swelled up, diarrhea, vomiting, hives, eczema flare up. The GP sent us to the hospital to get checked over and to get an epipen. She also said if it happens again to call an ambulance. We saw the paediatrician and he dithered over who to refer us to (as we've seen a dermatologist recently he thought that would be enough?) and said he'd phone us today and send over the epipen prescription and arrange training (we were there after hours). We missed the call and he left a message saying we didn't need an epipen after all and we would be seen in a couple of months for a review by an allergy specialist.

Should I be going back to the GP and pushing for an epipen or do I wait and hope for the best? I will obviously avoid giving him egg again but we may yet discover other allergies and I am aware that it could be worse next time.

[May09Bump]

You need an urgent referral to a consultant allergist and you definitely need Epipen's asap (you carry two plus piriton). Push for referral and epipens from GP.

From the consultant you need at least patch tests, we found the blood test a bit more reliable so maybe ask about this. I wouldn't recommend introducing any more new foods until you have been seen by the consultant.

One of the silver linings was that the eczema improved greatly once we had removed allergens from his diet.

Its a worrying time, but you adapt and it is manageable.

[Kilicat]

Thanks for your encouraging message May09Bump - I've phoned the GP and I'm waiting for a call back. DS has already had blood tests for wheat, dairy, nuts and dust mites but we're still waiting on the results. Definitely won't be introducing any new foods for a while (not sure my nerves could stand it right now!) but still a small risk of contamination of other foods so I would feel better if we had the epipens.

I'm now cutting out egg so hoping that really helps with the eczema. Egg would seem like one of the more manageable allergies and also likely to grow out of I hope (especially if it's baked into things). However, we've yet to try him on nuts / shell fish etc so I realise that there may be other things lurking!

[ILostItInTheEarlyNineties]

You should also look into the vaccines he needs as some contain egg protein which may cause a reaction.

[MayfairMummy]

Kilicat... when my DS was young, he had the same reactions as yours when I ate egg (i was breastfeeding)... we were not prescribed an epipen based on that (even though the reaction was that bad when he wasn't even eating it directly). We did in the end get an epipen prescription but by that point, we'd had multiple allergies identified, and the skin prick tests to several of them were very large. Because the ones that were very large included nuts and peanuts, they decided to prescribe epipen. Depending on your local area/gp etc, you may have some difficulties getting an epipen for 'only' an egg reaction that has not required hospitalisation. Be sure to carry piriton with you at all times, though! it's magic :-)

WRT vaccines, if you research it (which admitedly i haven't done for a few years) you'll find that there is an incredibly low risk of anything happening and you should probably not worry about it. if you do worry about it, you can wait in the gp surgery for a couple of hours to make sure nothing goes wrong....

[ILostItInTheEarlyNineties]

Sorry I didn't want to be alarmist r.e. vaccines. It would be unwise to avoid inoculation but if you're aware he may have some symptoms afterwards, you can treat him accordingly.

[May09Bump]

There is a product you can buy called "no egg" by orgran and it's fantastic for using in cooking to replace egg. In fact the whole Orgran range is quite good, when your ready to wean.