Help, I'm confused about allergy specialists advice.

[RambleOn]

My DD had quite a severe reaction to scrambled egg at 8mo, and was seen by a paediatric allergy specialist at this time. He basically told me to remove any egg from her diet and come back in a year.

We went for the appt with him last week (DD now 20mo). In the meantime she has had one allergic episode, again to egg, about 2 months ago. (It was well-hidden in a Mars bar!)

He advised me to try her with a small cube of cake after she is 2yo.

I'm confused now though as to why he is advising this. I understand that there are 'levels' of egg allergy, and that she might tolerate well-cooked cake.

However, after the incident recently, it's clear that she still has a significant allergy to certain 'levels' of egg.

What's the point of knowing that she's ok with cake, when there's no nutritional benefit to it iyswim?

Any thoughts/experience?

[tatt]

egg allergies are often outgrown so the idea with trying some well cooked egg is to see if your child is outgrowing the allergy. There are some nutritional benefits to well cooked egg and some social benefits to being able to have e.g birthday cake at other childrens' parties.

I don't know how Mars bars are made but would have thought it quite likely that was cooked egg anyway? If the egg in mars bar is cooked then 2 might be a bit soon.

[RambleOn]

You are right re the social benefits, hadn't really thought past her being unable to have cake at her own 2nd birthday party. Apart from my egg-free efforts that is

I thought the same, that egg in Mars bars would be well-cooked. Have googled to find a sliding scale of toleration iyswim, but no luck so far.

[tatt]

you could maybe see if mars have a customer service line and ask them? They'd probably have to get back to you though.

[Catilla]

How bad was the allergic episode? Perhaps if it's not life-threatening then they don't want to put your dd through lots of (very boring) testing when you can try it reasonably safely at home?

IMO (my ds is still egg and milk-allergic at 4) it's useful to know, because it really affects how worried you need to be about accidental exposure. And the older they get, the more likely something accidental is, as they spend time with other children and other carers.

[RambleOn]

Good idea about cust service, will do that.

The first episode was very bad - she refused to eat the egg, but everywhere it had been in contact with her skin was in big white raised weals. She got a terrible rash right across her body and runny nappies, both symptoms lasted 48 hrs.

I had phoned for medical advice at the docs, and he said as long as there were no breathing difficulties, which there weren't, I should just watch her. When the HV was weighing her 3days later, she took one look at the rash and said to go straight to A&E.

This last episode though, she had no swelling around her mouth, just an extremely hot red rash all over her body. Having seen the previous episode, I was a lot less worried, as her mouth was not affected and she seemed okay in herself.

Everyone who we were with though, most parents themselves, were horrified that I just gave her Piriton and didn't see a doctor!

Does anyone know if exposure when she's still allergic will mean she's less likely to grow out of it? Could I cause her to end up with an allergy into adulthood, when she would have grown out of it?

[tatt]

some people certainly claim that repeated exposure reduces the risk of outgrowing it but I haven't seen the evidence to back it up. Personally with that strength of reaction if the mars was cooked egg I'd leave it longer than 2 to try again - at least 2.5 and maybe 3. Of course if you have a follow up appointment planned then you'll need to try it again before you see the doctor.