Nut allergy...what now...

[weston]

My daughter is a year and half and I gave her some peanut butter the other day and she immediately came out in rash so mentioned it to doctor who said she must be allergic to nuts...soo what now...do i need to get her offically tested? do i just not give her nuts?? what foods do i need to avoid?

I would get her tested TBH it is not worth the risk as you will be forever worryng if you don't know for sure .
I am waiting to hear back about my dd's allergy to pineapple and I worry enough about foods containing that so it must be a nightmare with nuts .
I would go back to the GP and ask for more tests or a referrel .

Get a referral to your local allergy clinic from your GP (it may have a waiting list but DON'T take no for an answer). The clinic will check that she does have an allergy (safely) and help you monitor it, if so.

In the meantime:

1. Don't give her food with peanuts in it (obviously), or other nuts like hazelnuts, cashew nuts (although she may not be allergic to them - the allergy clinic can test this for you). This is the easy bit.

1. Don't give her food that says 'May contain traces of nuts' on the packaging, or 'Not suitable for nut allergy sufferers' This is more difficult - you just have to read the labels on everything. Chocolates, biscuits/cakes and breakfast cereal are the worst I find but loads of stuff has the warnings on.

1. Buy a bottle of Piriton liquid and an oral syringe from the chemists and carry it with you everywhere. If she accidentally eats peanuts again and reacts then give her the appropriate dosage.

1. The scary bit. If your daughter reacts again and shows any of the following symptoms: lip swelling, facial swelling, tongue swelling, wheeziness/difficulty breathing or sudden drowsiness then administer piriton and call an ambulance straight away. Sometimes (but not always) second reactions can be worse.

Hopefully this is all just a false alarm but until you know for sure I'd act as if you do have a peanut allergy on your hands.

what a nightmare! thanks for all the advice, will get to local clinic and get it confirmed! thank you

I'm just new to the board so forgive me if I waffle a bit! My son is 7 and we discovered that he has a nut allergy. He put a peanut into his mouth and immediately had an extremely serious reaction, thankfully he didn;t swallow the nut out. Our local GP told us that he didn't need tested as it was clear that he had an allergy, and that we had to obivously live a nut free life as far as possible. I'm really worried about this as I now don't know what he is going to react to, he had previously been able to eat nutella, snickers etc but GP says that since he has had the reaction, he will only get worse. SHould I push for him to get tested?

tree nut allergies are common, and although not related to peanut, you can have allergies to both.

tree nuts are often cross contaminated with peanut.

however its possible for your child to be only allergic to peanut, but not tree nuts, and can include them in his diet. ( we just eat them direct from shell)