Another reaction today

[tatt]

didn't use epipen, just antihistamine, but decided to do what we were told we should and go to hospital. It's a long trip so of course by the time we get there she's better.

Ask if they can offer any help in tracking down the cause and they say "talk to your gp" - who we explain knows less than we do. And "avoid any processed food" - great, they will never be invited anywhere ever again. They did check her blood pressure.

Off to try out American sites to see what an American hospital would do!

poor you ds had a reaction two weeks ago to something unknown and its soooooo frustrating when you can't find out what caused it.

I didn't read the previous thread, but if you are worried, put a cortisone bottle in the fridge. In case of a scary attack, you might be glad you had the option.

I have a history of severe allergies & talked to DD's paediatrician about how she might be the same & cortisone is what she prescribed.

Oh no, not again tatt!

Tatt... I know it is not the most reliable test, far from it, but it helped us to check many foods in one go and then we ordered a RAST test to confirm the higher scoring foods. York Test?

Mind you, I would be avoiding processed food too. A pain to do and definitively sad to send children with their lunch when they go out, but if that is what it takes...

She has epipens, Cote.

"processed" in this case was a chilled soup from Sainsburys with a limited number of ingredients, most of them having been eaten safely before. It did contain pepper, which I never add to food at home - sadly the paediatrician tested her blood for capiscum rather than the condiment when we asked him to test pepper. My home made soup doesn't get eaten.

I'm wondering whether to go private for a consultation but that could mean travelling to London.

Tatt, it is worth it, if you are in the northeast I can get you the details of an immunologist in Leeds.

Shame about the soup, now DS can eat soya things are very different but before... I always found it amusing when I complained about having to do everything from scratch and most people told me things like "oh, but we also do things from scratch" the face they did when I told them we couldn't even use chicken cubes.

But it is always a problem, the other day I baked some biscuits for DS, new recipee, same old ingredients and... his skin is peeling of around the mouth, first day I blame it on the nursery, second day I knew there were the biscuits. There is no chance of transcontamination as we don't brign home anything that DS shouldn't eat but I'm starting to wonder if it was the combination of the ingredients that he reacted to rather than something getting into it.

In London I could see someone we saw before we moved, if he sees private patients now.

Yes its easy to say avoid processed food but my child is growing up and will, I hope, be leaving home for university in a few years. They need to live in a world full of processed food. I doubt they will cook from scratch at university.

I was trying to get them to eat a wider range of vegetables

Tatt, I agree with you, and I truly thought DS was going to starve to death rather than eat what he should. And little by little he is getting better at it. Now, being DS allergic to fish, soya, eggs, dairy, nuts, peanuts, tomatoes, oranges, wheat, bananas etc. it is not as if we had a choice.

Perhaps start with something simple, like pasta recipes and then build up into it. DH learnt to cook at Uni, when I met him he cringed at tins of any kind. Which makes it strange for us to find it so difficult to go back to processed food free after my efficient indoctrinating him telling him that tins were not that bad.