Dh has an anaphylactic allergy to egg, when and how do I find out if dd has it?

[FuckYouChrisAndThatHorse]

HV just keeps fobbing me off with "I'll find out", dd is 8 months and eating happily.

Dh first reacted violently at dd's age to his first bite of egg. Am I supposed to just try it and see? I have no clue about allergies beyond dh's experiences. I don't want to give her egg at all if it means risking her health, but I'm aware I could be potentially creating an allergy by introducing too late. I'm lost.

Dd has very mild eczema, but so far no sign of any asthma.

Any advice gratefully received.

Go to your gp and ask for advice.

Does your DH react to eggs in all forms?

No, only lightly cooked or egg alone. So can't have mayonnaise, scrambled eggs etc, but can eat cake.

He still reacts strongly as an adult and has an epi pen.

My ds had an egg allergy and I was told to dot a tiny bit of raw egg white on his skin to see if he reacted to keep an eye on it to see if he outgrew the allergy.

Sheeeewee I had wondered about doing something like that, since dh comes up in hives if he gets it on his skin, but it isn't actually life threatening.

I have anaphylactic reaction to different types of beans - mainly coffee and chocolate

My mil was skeptical so on a sleep over decided to give first child chocolate @ 3 years and then told us the next day that we were over-reacting because nothing happened

Second child We took to A&E and gave a chocolate bar and waited - all good - no problem

There is probably a doctor now who can do some type of allergy testing that is less dramatic than sitting in the waiting room at A&E

My dsis is an allergy sceptic she cannot understand how dh can be allergic to the point of dying if he can eat cake. I've tried to explain about how the proteins are altered, but she clearly thinks it's all bollocks. I could see her testing an allergy. She's a scientist too FFS.

I was hoping HV would say to bring some egg and give it at the surgery or something.

You can get allergy testing. Ask your GP. I wouldn't want a HV being involved as they don't have the expertise.

My baby is allergic to egg too and we found out because we had allergy tests done.

If it gives hives then I would do that ...

Forgot to add that food challenges have to be done in hospital you couldn't do them in a GPs surgery as they wouldn't have everything you'd need to deal with an extreme anaphylactic reaction.

Thanks for all the great advice. I'll definitely see my gp. Hopefully there's some testing they can do as a first port of call. It just seemed mad to me that I've been abandoned with no advice and just occasional, "have you tried it yet?"

We have had same situation with nut allergy. Had to wait till DC were 3yrs old, then had blood tests followed by skin pricks followed by nut challenge.

Problem is you don't react on 1st exposure, so if you are free of that allergen in your household, as we are, then I don't see why blood/skin tests could ever be positive....
Anyway, we were told to conduct the challenge test at home and were given very specific instructions. It starts without swallowing, and very small amounts.

Oh and it was all done via referral from GP to paediatric allergy clinic. They do this all the time.

Thanks snoggle. We do have eggs in the house (although I am incredibly careful to dispose of them, and dh takes antihistamines whenever he knows I'm using them, which reduces his reaction to manageable. So hopefully she's had plenty of small exposures ( with no reaction so far), without ever eating any.

Fingers crossed she doesn't have any allergies. It's just something you have to be so careful with.

I first gave my DD2 an omelette when she was about 7 months old - she was baby led weaning. Within a few minutes she came up in blisters all over her hands where she'd been handling and all around her mouth as well as her eyes going red and watering. I panicked thinking her airway could be reacting in the same way or swell and she could stop breathing so I called the GP surgery. They sent me running down to the pharmacy with her to get some antihistamine liquid - which I gave her on the spot and she was fine within a few minutes.

When all was calm I called my DH to tell me and he said oh yes I had an egg allergy when I was a child - WTF!!!!! Thanks for telling me......

When I went back to the GP about it they told me that the current advice is that you don't give egg to children that have family members with allergies until they are 1. So to avoid it until then. Which I did and went back when she was 1, where they told me to introduce it gradually and have the antihistamine on hand - so I started giving her things like biscuits, cakes etc gradually and she was fine. I worked up to eggs over a couple of weeks and she was fine.

She is now three and has just been diagnosed with a severe cat allergy and grass allergy with related asthma after a recent trip to my mums - so if they have a tendency to allergies I think they'll often succumb to so something.

So I would wait until she is 1 and then see your GP and either aske for some antihistamine liquid so that you can start introducing it slowly but are covered if she has a reaction.

Sorry that was rather long......

That's great, elf, I'll get some liquid antihistamine in anyway in case of other reactions or accidents :)

I disagree with the above advice. I think you should ask for a referral to a pediatric allergy clinic. If you are in London, the clinic at Evelina comes highly recommended.

Leaving after 1 isn't always a good idea. At least they can do a skin prick test.

Thanks shine, sadly I doubt there's a clinic within a hundred miles of us, but I'm happy to travel. Will see gp ASAP either way to see what they can do about referrals.

We found out the hard way when we gave DC some pasta - the brand of dried pasta had been made with egg in it and that was enough to cause an allergic reaction. When we finally got an appointment at the allergy clinic it was not entirely helpful - they could only test for a few things at a time, and even then we got false negative reaction to a couple of substances. We always have the antihistamine to hand!

Grass, luckily we don't have that in the house because of dh, otherwise I would easily have given dd something like that already.

I know when dh went to the gp and asked to be referred to see if his allergies had improved, he was told the testing is useless and as likely to give false results as correct ones.

I'm of another generation, but when my children were young we advised to avoid the measles/mmr injection if you had a problem with eggs. Is this still the case?

My friend's little boy is egg allergic and can't have some injections MMR and flu as the vaccine is grown in the egg/chick embryo so he would react to them.

My DD is allergic to egg and the consultant said they now advise there's no problem with mmr as it's grown in chick cells not egg. Flu is still a no go.

Anyway OP you can either try the testing route (in hospital, not the kind you get in health food shops etc) or start with a very small amount of highly processed egg as that's the lowest risk, e.g. a packaged cake - I realise this wouldn't be your first choice of baby food! Also I know allergies in the family do make allergies more likely but I'm not sure it's particularly likely to be the same thing iyswim.

Allergy UK has a good site for info.

It was the allergy clinic that told us to try raw white on his skin to see if there was a reaction. My ds is fine with cooked egg and at age 10 now has egg on toast for breakfast every day - just no runny bits.

My dd is allergic to eggs. She already had eczema and history of allergies in DH's family so we were told not to give egg til she was one. When I gave her the first spoon of scrambled egg she immediately broke out in hives.
Her reaction to raw egg on skin was much worse than her previous reaction to ingested egg so I wouldn't advise putting raw egg on your dd unless you are medically supervised. DD swelled up hugely when she accidentally got raw egg on her skin.
My dd had the MMR with no problems and also had the flu vaccine the year that there was a huge panic about it, but she had a different version that was suitable for egg allergy sufferers.
DD is now 8 and can eat most cake/biscuits with no problems but cannot have egg custards, custard based ice cream, mayonnaise etc.

Has your dd eaten baked things with egg as an ingredient?

Peaches your dd sounds similar to dh. She's had cake so is fine with baked egg.

And as already said, MMR is now safe for egg allergies so she's had that and been fine.

All this information is helping so much. I should have asked here sooner!