deciphering skin prick tests

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Last week our 26 month old had a skin prick test which confirmed what we already knew (our 26 month old is allergic to eggs)and it also showed what we suspected ;that she is allergic to peanuts ,walnuts and almonds.
We have been avoiding her eating eggs in any form and are continuing to do so we just now have to also consult another long list of 'hidden egg products '.
We are obviously avoiding all nut products even the ones that say they might contain traces of nuts.
The hospital also gave us a hidden nuts and linked foods to avoid.so now we are avoiding things like homous even though she has never reacted to it before as it it is on our no list.
I have noticed on here that people talk about the severity of the allergies in relation to numbers what are these numbers?
Also we are now snowed under with paper work from companies that we have contacted to find out if their products are safe :how does ever one else store this info :surely its impossible to remember it all and impractical to take all of the revelant info with you when you go shopping?

the numbers for skin prick tests are the size of the bump that forms where they pricked the skin. If the bump gets smaller over time they interpret it as growing out of the allergy.

For rast (blood) tests I think they look at how many antibodies are being produced. The scale is logarithmic so a value of 3 is 10 times as bad as a value of 2. I think they stop counting at 6. With luck your child may outgrow these allergies, but the higher their score the less likely that is.

No test is infallible, the best test is a food challenge. However if the tests results are high they don't do food challenges as they are too risky. Food challenges are for items where the child tests positive but the parents say they are OK with it or there has been a negative test. They are done very carefully and slowly in hospital.

Company information can be out of date a day after you get it. It's useful when you start out but we tend to stick to foods we know are "safe" - and then read the labels each time to double check. Makes for slow shopping trips.

If they didn't test for sesame, pine nut or lupin those are best avoided for the nut allergic, because a lot of nut allergic people develop allergies to those too. Mine tests positive to lupin and pine nut but we didn't bother with sesame as she's OK with that.

Thanks how did you find this out were not told any of this.

mostly through the anaphylaxis campaign and the parents we've met through that. Some of it from consultants initially but the (excellent) consultant we saw for the initial diagnosis contributes to the anaphylaxis campaign newsletter anyway.

On a positive note DS is severly allergic to seasame seeds and we avoided nuts as a precaution. When we finally did a food challenge on peanuts he was fine.

One of the reasons they won't do a food challenge if the prick test lump is big is because they believe that the speed at which you grow out of an allergy is increased if there is no exposure to the allergen.