Which allergy do you find the hardest to manage???

[mymama]

Aside from the obvious!!! My ds is intolerant to wheat and dairy and rotates every other day. He is severely allergic to egg, fish and nuts. Obviously nuts are the highly dangerous one and I don't think of him growing out of that one but I think I will be truly excited when/if he grows out of the egg allergy. I find it the hardest one to avoid day to day. Which one is it for you????

Well my DD had dairy allergy and peanut allergy from birth and it was just a case of getting on with it and checking ALL labels.

Its weird now because my DS is fine (and DD has largely grown out of the dairy allergy) but i still find myself thoroughly checking all labels in the supermarket

I tried avoid gluten for a while and found that terrible because its more hidden than most. It will help when new allergy labelling comes in. Avoiding milk is more of a pain than avoiding nuts because it rules out more prepared food. I find the hardest thing to cope with is other parents reactions to nut allergy - both the comments about how its all in the mind and the ones who exclude a child because they don't want the responsibility.

Must admit when he was first tested avoiding milk and gluten and the egg was really hard. Why is it that all these gluten free foods and health food shove nuts and eggs into everything?????

My DS is allergic to eggs, Hummous and fish. I am interested to know if you had your son tested for his allergies and wonder how they tested for nuts as I wonder if I should consider having DS tested.

My ds was skin tested at approx 9 months. He had hives and vomiting after eating a little weetbix at about 7 months. I was very lucky to get into specialist early as the waiting list was 12 months. I asked to be put on the cancellation list and was contacted quickly. He was originally tested for many things including the wheat, dairy, egg, fish and peanut which all tested positive. He has never even had egg, fish or peanut but we strictly avoid them. I would get your ds tested for nuts as that allergy is so unpredictable and dangerous. My ds was tested again at 14 months with not much improvement and we are due for testing again on Tuesday. I am not sure about blood testing as this has not been offered to us yet. I don't know if it is something done when they are a bit older.

I find no problem at all avoiding eggs or peanuts. Latex is a different matter - today ds was offered a balloon by the pharmacist FGS.

I sympathise with you bobbybob. I imagine latex would be extremely difficult as it would be everywhere. I know my children are offered balloons everywhere we go. What procedures do you have in place for a medical emergency?? Do the gloves/masks etc they wear contain latex???

Latex sounds tricky.

We had a child at our co-op who was allergic to indigo. It took a while to work out what the problem was, and then avoiding indigo clothes is a pretty odd task.

DS is allergig to egg, milk, nuts, sesame seeds, fish, some fruits and vegetables, and soya.

So far the most difficult to avoid has been soya (the stuff is omniprescent as a preservative and comes in so many different names that I carry an ever growing list of them with me...)

Chandra - must admit that I have been quite thankful soya isn't on our list (yet). It is in everything I look at. Has everyone got older children??? I think egg is hard for me because of the older children. I often pick dd up from school and they are eating someone's birthday cake. A piece is always offered to ds without asking me first.

Ah, now ds is only 2. I suspect egg would be more difficult if he was constantly being offered birthday cake!

I do let him swap any treats he is offered for a safe treat of his choice. Most times he asks for a bread roll, a marshmallow (white)a Kinnerton Chocolate or a jelly bean (with no colouring) or he asks to make some cakes. He did a Lolly Scramble at a birthday party and was happy to swap his massive haul of lollies for 2 marshmallows. He is the only 2 year old I have ever met who can do delayed gratification.

we've always had the "treats must be brought home and swapped for something suitable" line too - although I am in awe of managing that at 2. Once your child is in anyone else's care a treat box, so they can be offered a substitute at the time, is worth considering. However the carer often forgets/ can't be bothered so don't rely on it, introduce the swap rule anyway.