Why can’t kids take nuts??

[Kungfupanda67]

Genuine question, just had a booking form for a school trip and had the usual reminder to not put anything containing nuts in lunch boxes because some children are allergic to them. I was just wondering why this is such a blanket rule when some children are also allergic to eggs, cheese, wheat etc? Anyone know?

@BettyUnderswoob I’m sure that boy was being seriously bullied and the other boys were actually rubbing cheese on him and some ended up in his mouth

I'm staggered by the selfish attitude of some parents. Children can die from nut allergies.

My friends child is currently in intensive care after a child he sat next to at lunch opened his lunch box, which contained a product containing nuts. He hadn't even opened the packet, the residue on it was enough to trigger a reaction. A dose of piriton and two JEXT pens didn't work. He collapsed in front of his friends in the dining room and was blue lighted to hospital.

Avoiding putting nuts in a lunchbox might be a minor irritation at worst to most parents, but ignoring the school's request could literally destroy an entire family. After seeing the effect first hand, I think that parents deliberately flouting the rule (because they think it's mollycoddling or whatever) should be charged with attempted GBH or manslaughter. It is beyond selfish.

I remember a kid in my dds class (early00s) had a citrus allergy we were asked not to send oranges in it really was no big deal a child with an allergy is surely more important than akid having a tangerine at break.

@Kungfupanda67 it didn't go in his mouth, it landed on his clothed arm I believe. A child at my work has an airborne dairy allergy, requiring epi pens. He would have a similar reaction if it landed on him.

OP my post wasn't aimed at you,it came from a place of general frustration after reading the strawberry comment.

If a child's tongue swells it can inhibit breathing, yes of COURSE a child should be taught to avoid strawberries but you're talking about small children. Incidentally as a mother of an allergic teen I am MORE terrified now than I have ever been as I have lost all control over what he eats, his mates eat or who he kisses!

My DS has life threatening allergies - dairy being his worst one, although he is also allergic to soya, eggs, tree nuts and peanuts.
The preschool he is going to in Sept (DD already attends there) have a blanket ban on nuts, but not dairy, even though there is already another child in attendance with an anaphylactic dairy allergy. I asked out paediatric consultant about it at our last appointment and he said it’s usually because spores from nuts can very easily become airborne and cause an anaphylactic reaction by being inhaled, whereas dairy proteins are heavy so highly unlikely to become airborne and pose the same danger.
My DS is contact reactive to dairy, but doesn’t go into shock if it touches his skin - he comes up in hideously painful hives though. He would have to ingest dairy proteins for him to suffer an anaphylactic reaction.
Doesn’t make it any less scary though! Any kind of reaction is distressing for both him and me. Even with his non-IGE allergies, they cause horrible gastrointestinal upset for anything up to a week after exposure which is very distressing for him. Last time that happened, he just stopped eating all together because he was terrified food in general would hurt his belly he lost loads of weight as a result and had to be readmitted to hospital.
Allergies are a very complex minefield, and each person can have different symptoms and reactions. There’s no one size fits all about it.
Threads like this always seem to attract some really ignorant posters who think parents with allergic children are just trying to be difficult I’d love to be able to take my kid to a soft play centre without worrying about him dying, because some nob has allowed their little cherub to much a packet of cheesy wotsits in the play area...but we don’t always get what we want do we?!

"Also we have stopped evolution by protecting everyone with any "condition" and society is now unhealthier and more vulnerable. This is worrying."

@SherlockHolmesPipe That's a direct quote from your post.

In times gone by - before modern medicine - my baby would have just died. Evolution is survival of the fittest, and he was no match for that egg! So again, should he have died? Because that's the logical follow on from your post.

The thread wasn’t meant to go in this direction, sorry! I genuinely just wondered why nuts are treated differently, especially after the examples some of you have given about other life threatening allergies your children have

Possibly nut allergies are mentioned because they are seen as a general risky thing to avoid, so are always mentioned just in case.

Although the class might have specific other allergies that it might be more sensible to mention.

I like pistachio or walnut or hazelnut ice cream, and was wondering why these things have almost disappeared in the UK. They are still very common popular flavours in other countries. I had thought that maybe nuts were too expensive as ingredients for our ice cream manufacturers and they preferred to keep to cheap ingredients and flavourings. But I recently had a lightbulb moment when I realised they may just be avoiding nuts because so many people are allergic and they don't even want them on their factory premises? Will praline also disappear?

"Also we have stopped evolution by protecting everyone with any "condition" and society is now unhealthier and more vulnerable. This is worrying."

I'd be dead or severely disabled were it not for modern medicine, due to what I strongly suspect is underlying genetic causes, passed down through the generations.

It's yet another reason why I'm highly unlikely to have kids - I don't think it's sensible to reproduce when you know your kids are highly likely to inherit your condition.

@Prawnofthepatriarchy

Yes that makes sense. Pesticides etc would have an impact.

I can’t imagine having a child with a severe allergy, one that could cause death. I would be living in constant fear.

It's interesting that in places like Israel where the number one snack is Bamba (a wotsit kind of puffed crisp made of 50% peanut) they have among the lowest children's peanut allergy rates in the world. They literally use these snacks for teething??

Im sure it can't be as simple as they are exposed to peanuts young therefore they aren't allergic. My niece's severe peanut allergy was discovered when she was a young toddler sucking on peanut butter toast

@BettyUnderswoob are you not worried about the increase in the proportion of kids who may die because of nuts, milk, egg, soya, cheese, eggs, seeds, strawberries? Where will it end? Shall we all wear forensic suits and masks, and stay inside? Do YOU not find this worrying??????

What's your solution then, SherlockHolmesPipe?

Kungfu

BettyUnderswoob I’m sure that boy was being seriously bullied and the other boys were actually rubbing cheese on him and some ended up in his mouth

Yes, and other children with allergies may be bullied too

@bigtoes I’d do anything to be able to know what actually causes allergies
I’ve nearly lost my son twice because of them, and there’s not a single person on this planet who can give me a definitive answer as to why he was born this way and my older DC wasn’t.
He was (unbeknownst to me!) reacting to the dairy proteins in my diet through my breastmilk from the day he was born (put down to colic by me and our GP), and then went into anaphylactic shock at a few weeks old when I tried to give him formula

Allergies can present in a number of different ways not just anaphalaxis. Excema / Asthma / colitis can be all be a symptom of allergies. This is why in many countries allergies are under-reported.

@bettyunderswoob

I’m not sure what your sneery confused face is all about. I haven’t said I don’t think schools should ban allergens, my questions is why are nuts banned but not cheese, for example. As you’ve shown in this example just banning nuts isn’t enough to prevent a child dying from an allergy at school

Finding the cause and avoiding it. Seems like earlier exposure to a wider range of foods might help.

People haven't "not had all these allergies" for thousands of years. They just died. And those that didn't die were simply marked as "sickly" people.

The reason nuts are banned at your school is probably down to students having a bit allergy. If a pupil comes to school with a severe airborne dairy allergy I'm sure those would be banned or at least controlled too if possible (though banning nuts is easy, banning dairy, not so much)

Of course it’s bad that more people have allergies (if indeed they do) What’s your proposal, though, Sherlock .
Your ‘solution’ Implied that we shouldn’t treat them or let them reproduce.

sherlock are you deliberately being goady or is cuntish behaviour just part of your general demeanour?

Humans have stopped evolving? Nonsense. How can anyone believe that?!

@aPengTing well clearly your knowledge is far superior to that of David Attenborough. and clearly I must be a raving Nazi for suggesting evolution is being changed because of modern medicine.Jesus I'm outta here.

You mean finding the cause of allergies? We have haven't we? My (albeit very basic) understanding is that the body incorrectly identifies some random thing as an aggressor, and sends its fighty things - in this case histamine? - to fight the thing. But it over produces the fighty things, and starts to fight the body instead.

I'm not sure what you can do to avoid that? We have antihistamines that are used to treat the response, but I assume you mean find something that forever stops the body overproducing fighty things.

Except then with no fighty things, when there is a real agressor you might die anyway.

Quite the conundrum.