Southampton Open day

[heliumballoons]

DS school nurse has mentioned next Thurday (7th) theres an open day with consultants and specialists in allergy at Southampton Hospital. Can't find anything about it on the website and main switchboard unsure.

Doea anyone know anything about it and who I contact?

And when I do find out I'll post information here.

bumping for evening crowd x

Does this help? My DSis wen there a few years ago and found it very useful.

Hi - have asked friend who is a paediatric allergy nurse there. She says:
It is the opening of the new Research Unit - the BRU on C level at Southampton General Hospital. It is an open evening starting at 7pm - open to the general public. There will be various presentations throughout the evening by consultants and specialists in Asthma and Allergy.

Hazel Gowland - Food Adviser - Anaphylaxis Campaign

Thanks, I have contacted aircharity who are organising it and have booked me and DS. I started another thread to give the deatails but no replies on it.

I've put links to this thread on the Children's and Adult asthma threads to alert anybody in the area who might like to go.

Thanks Claire. Hers the link to the website of AAIR Charity whos organising it.

I know its tonight but hopefully some will be able to make it.

www.aaircharity.org/events/Allergy_Open_Evening_Poster.pdf

I'll get all the info I can. Hopefully if I can get some leaflets I can copy them and send them to any MN who want a copy.

Sorry about the short notice - I only found out last week and have been bumping my thread and started another one. Maybe my title didn't work to get people to read I will work on that.

Yes it does. I went tonight and attended 3 of the talks. One was on childrens food allergy. Mainly about the trials and research being carried out. It was interesting to find out their are 8 different allergen proteins in a peanut someone with a peanut allergy may only react to 1 of those proteins.
They are researching if each of these protiens causes a different reaction. So example your allergic to protein 1 it will mean vomiting, protein 2 causes hives, 3 analyphalaxis, and if the different prteins mean whether you can come in contact, eat may contain etc or avoid totally. (the above is an example not actually the protein no and reaction!!)
Also one about skin tests and a demo (on a fake arm!). Not really much to report there - unless your dc hasn't had them in which case I can explain the process!!
The last one was on skin allergy - so mainly ezcema, and different contact dermatitis reactions. Not really sure what I got from this one - other than the fact hives alone can cause swollen lips/ eyes without it being 'true allergy' as such. Well he said this and when I asked him if it could affect breathing (he said possibly) and said that may be why DS' allergy RAST were always negative he said very unusuall though, only isolated cases - guess he thought I may bin the epi-pens and he'd be responsible.

Funniest thing was as we sat in the skin allergy talk DS started complaining his back and neck itched, he started to get a rash where he was hot, I was trying very discreetly to cool it down with his drinks bottle whilst DS starts scratching everywhere. In the end I just striped his t shirt off Only my son

no not really. He talked generally about the different skin reactions/ allergy and about why infammation/ hives occur and how.

I was a bit confused about what the dermatologist was trying to get across if I'm honest. I think many people were like me and there because they suffer skin allergy (well mines DS suffering) or ezcema etc - so kind of knew what they are.

YY about the ara h proteins - thats what the DR was talking about. He said they don't know yet what the implications are but is a big study.

Theres also one about mums eating salmon when pg - its coming to the time when they may have some results to compare.

Exactly - pretty much what the allergist said.

I was pleased as well when he asked if I saw an allergist and I said no a cons pead but was very happy with her and felt we could work through this together atm without further referral. He ask who she was and then said he agreed she was excellent, he knows her and said he would consult with her re DS if I wanted.

Think allergist was saying more the risk of analphylaxis with different proteins as opposed to who would get an epi-pen (always a small risk I would have thought?)

Excellent point - I think thats why allergist said they have done reasearch but have to carry it over a really long period and I would imagine be 100% accurate/ sucess or the ramifications could be a catastrophe.

FWIW My DS has a fairly normal IgE, negative RAST to the things he's eaten before reacting (tomato and also tested peanuts, aswell as grass pollen and HDM), but because of the severe reaction (confirmed by symptoms and photos I took) he has epi-pens. Cons Pead said its just not worth the risk of a reation we can't control - he is at risk however small because the last reaction caused swollen lips/eyes, breathing difficulties/noisy breathing and a confused state in which he thought he was freezing to death. She said this is all signs of shock and actually not knowing the trigger/ allergen in some ways is more of a risk because we have nothing to avoid - no way of limiting the risk of it happening again. He is not asthmatic either.