Ds1 had an allergic reaction last night...

[wb]

...and we don't know what it was to.

That says it all really. Either some nut traces got past my defenses (and my defenses are pretty good) or we have a new allergy to deal with. The main contenders being celery, fish or sulphites (typically it had to happen at a big complicated meal I'd cooked for my mums birthday so really it could be all manner of things).

Its the first reaction he's had since he was 6 months old and was definitely more worrying as it affected his mouth and possibly his throat - last time it was just hives. I'm feeling really low and weepy (realise I was cherishing the totally unrealistic hope that he would grow out of his nut allergy and we'd ride off into the sunset with him no longer being an 'allergic type' person. Bollocks!)

The good news is that the hospital will see us today for some blood tests, so we may have an answer soon.

Have no idea (now I'm writing this) why I'm writing this but somehow it makes me feel better. Last night I felt like I did when he was newly diagnosed ie sick and panicky.

Thanks for reading.

The mystery continues...

Doctor wants us to do a halibut challenge (mental picture of wild west scene and ds shouting 'reach for your halibut you varmit' to the allergy nurse) as RASTs can sometimes be unreliable. Hospital has never done one of these before (surprise, surprise). We are also going to skin prick test for celery. We have to bring in the suspect stock cubes for the nurse to look at. aybe she's been trained in peanut divination??

In the meantime they are going to find out more about sulphite sensitivity - it is v. rare in children apparently - and how this can be tested for.

No, when my mum is around they are thoroughly washed before meals.

No, I doubt it. The house is nut free anyway and the kitchen had recently been cleaned to German hausfrau hygiene standards (see above).

The other thing is that both his RAST and his skin prick are fairly low for peanut (0.7 and 5mm respectively) so I doubt he'd react to microscopic traces. We are looking at a challenge when he's 7/8 if the skin prick result begins to decline - his RAST has declined from 2.8 to 0.7 in 3 years but skin prick remains the same. He did react to milk (albeit mildly) with a RAST of 0.6 and a negative skin prick test though, so I'm happy to wait a while.

they do HAVE to label for lupine, came into effect last year, and many companies started labeling before the deadline date.

I suspect the fish, and possibly the stock cubes.

it could be yeast extract, or the fish which does contain high levels of histamine.

high histamine foods can tip a allergic person in to a reaction sometimes.