To be fed up of people thinking peanut allergies are the worst?

[misdee]

Not many take the eggs and milk part of my daughters allergies as seriously as her nut allergy.

Why?

Why do some assume that peanut allergies are always deadly and others aren't?

Anaphylatics is anaphylatics whatever the trigger is.

we have been so long down the road, people now say to me, almost in a angry way, ' hasnt he grown out of them YET?!!

I know lots of people with a variety of allergies, all of them are mild, I don't know anyone with anaphylatic (to the point where I probably can't even spell it right) reactions.

Before MN I had only ever heard of peanut allergies being fatal, I now know that others can be, but have still never seen an article in a newspaper about a fatal reaction to anything but peanuts.

I do get where people with allergies are coming from as my mum is coeliac (what do you mean I can't use the same knife? it's only been on the same plate it's not got any wheat in it, what's the problem?). I don't run a toddler group any more, when I did I would have been happy to make any changes necessary so that everyone could come and play safely.

Absolutely! I had a nightmare day today. Was in supermarket with DS (13 months) who has a dairy & egg allergy. I was packing the bags and a member of staff came past and started chatting with DS. I wasn't paying a huge amount of attention, just thought it was nice of her to distract him and before I knew it I just heard her say "Oh Mummy - he's a hungry boy!".

By the time I clocked what was happening it was too late and DS had a chunk of buttered pancake in his hand/mouth (the staff member had one of those trays and was offering people tasters. I stupidly just hadn't clocked it). DS instantly looked like he's been slapped in the face with a bunch of nettles and then proceeded to projectile vomit up his lunch. He must have only had a tiny amount and the staff member seemed so upset that I didn't have the heart to make a formal complaint.

Straight home for us. Car/carseat now stinking of vomit. Her reasoning? No-one could be allergic to a pancake...

that's outrageous! Surely they're trained not to feed customer's babies? Insane - what if he was anaphylactic? I think you need to call the store and speak to manager to make complaint. You can specify that you don't want to complain against that particular person, but that they need to re-train staff / change their policy.

... difference between being allergic and having an intolerance, though.
A lot of people have a wheat or dairy "intolerance" that they refer to as an allergy, and often some assume that everyone who claims a wheat/dairy allergy actually have a wheat/dairy hypochondria, even though must be teensy minority of people who do.
Whereas a peanut allergy is associated with anaphylaxis, epi-pens etc.

P.s. did you call allergy nurse afterwards? I f you did decide to take it further it would be good to have record of it.

My son has epi-pen for milk allergy. Not sure what you mean bumperella - unless you mean there is no confusion with peanut allergy, not lots of people saying 'oh no thanks I'm peanut intolerant' yes? :)

Ds is allergic to eggs, milk and nuts. He reacts badly if he eats eggs or dairy, he doesn't even have to have peanuts for him to had a reaction, some peanut dust over a table and we are in problems for 3 days.

The reason people take nut allergies more seriously is very simple and terribly sad: there are more reports in the media about people diying of peanut allergies than about any other allergy.

... I also think that my child peanut allergy is the worse, unlike with dairy and egg, every reaction to peanut he has had, has been substantially worse than the previous one.

abigboydidit - you definately need to raise it with management for staff training. It drives me mad when people try to give my DCs food - but they(DCs) are actually very good at checking(with me) if they are able to have it first.

I also get the 'has she not grown out of it yet?' with regard to DD2s dairy and egg allergies. She is almost 7 and to be honest I've resigned myself to her not growing out of them now, but at least she no longer needs an epipen, as piriton is usually enough to deal with any reaction she has.

I totally sympathise pedigree. You can never relax. At least there are many policies in place in restaurants and schools etc forthings to be 'nut free'. Our allergy nurse said if the incident with my DS at nursery had happened with her other milk allergic child, the child would have died. Getting people to recognise that it is the same danger with a different trigger though seems to be a losing battle.

Lois- yes well it is outrageous and I hope they really apologised and made it right, because otherwise how can you trust them I would have been very mad.

Kirsten- thanks so much for the recipe- i w ill try that.

ALlergies can be by degree and i suppose peanut is often the highest degree so sadly more case happen where there are tragic outcomes.

My son picked up another kid's yogurt pot- i was at a friend's and had been hovering as he was pretty little and my friend laughed and said relax- it is all child proofed here. Well I did not see dad come in and give their dd a yogurt which was later abandoned- all my son did was lick the lid.Even though we washed his mouth out he immediately went red in the face,tons of mucuos.......then overnight in hospital as his respiratory system was affected.

It just takes one moment like that- if he had consumed more I imagine it could have been fatal.
I once saw the stats for deaths from allergies in the US- it was very sad reading but yes more children have died after a nut reaction, each year.Nut is also the one least likely for kids to grow out of.But I take allergies very seriously now- the people are so sweet here and invariably make a vegan cake for him at parties- which i do not expect- pure kindness.

Love the t shirt- may have to get one printed.

"Getting people to recognise that it is the same danger with a different trigger though seems to be a losing battle."

Yes agree. For a while DS was the only child at his school with an epipen. The school banned nut products in lunchboxes because they had children with nut allergies. Well I suppose they may have meant my DS as he does have a nut allergy but it has always been an unknown quantity as he has never had nuts - it just showed up on the skin prick tests. I suspect they had other children at the school with nut allergies so the school just HAD to ban nuts . . . yet none of the children had nut allergies bad enough to have an epipen!

And meanwhile all the children who would only eat a sandwich if it had peanut butter or nutella in it had lunches they hated. And my DS, who WOULD have reacted if he had got someone else's yogurt spilled on him, had no special provision or ban made for him. All because the school felt that some children had allergies that were apparently so serious no one could eat nuts anywhere near them . . . but not serious enough to need epipens.

I never bothered complaining about it though . . . didn't affect us obviously, and I had run out of energy for all this by the time he started reception TBH.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1420391/Parents-may-sue-over-boys-death-from-nursery-milk.html

I know this was almost 10years ago, but I still remember it.

Yanbu it's because there are a huge heap of extreamly thick people about
thick group number 1. I don't like said item so I'm going to say I'm allergic
thick group number 2. No docter of any description has told me I'm allergic but I'm sure I must be so I'm gonna claim I am
thick group number 3. I've got a massive eating disorder and to normalise what I'm doing I'm gonna claim significant and varied allergies
thick group number 4. I'm intollerant to some things and to create a bit of drama I'm going to say allergic

thick group number 5. I'm going to assume everbody who claims allergies fits into one of the above named groups because we all know they don't really exist

it drives me insane my mum has really bad allergies to loads of things and the ammount of times we thought she was going to die cos of them was heartbreaking that's why I
so scathing to all of the groups mentioned above

Hi apols for not 'usefully' adding to the debate! Am not supposed to be posting right now, but I'll forget otherwise!

misdee - this chocolate cake recipe never fails and looks and tastes exactly like 'real' chocolate cake, I pass it off as normal all the time, cos it's way quicker than a normal sponge! Also tastes great with GF flour! You can swap the vinegar for any you have handy and miss the vanilla out completely if you need to :)

Ingredients
? 1 1/2 (6oz) cups all-purpose flour
? 1 cup (4oz) white sugar
? 1/4 (1oz) cup cocoa powder
? 1 teaspoon baking soda
? 1/2 teaspoon salt
? 1/3 (3fl oz) cup vegetable oil
? 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
? 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
? 1 (8fl oz) cup water
Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease one 9x5 inch loaf pan. (or makes 12 cupcakes!)
2. Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add the oil, vanilla, vinegar and water. Mix together until smooth.
3. Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Nutritional Information
   Amount Per Serving Calories: 275 | Total Fat: 9.7g | Cholesterol: 0mg

Ps cupcakes take 20mins not 45!

misdee - I remember that also. I was supposed to go back to work part time when DS was six months, by which time his milk allergy had been diagnosed.
We took him to a few settling in sessions, but in the end decided we just couldn't be sure about it and I had to hand in my notice. He didn't end up going to nursery until nursery school, age 3.

Because he was fully aware of his allergies by then we thought it was manageable, but obviously it wasn't for the nursery. :/ The allergy clinic were fuming. Nurse said we could have sued etc, but at the end of the day, didn't want upset transition from nursery to school for DS. They just didn't seem to get the seriousness of it, no matter what we, or the allergy educators told them.

My brother had similar problems at school. The headteacher didn't believe in allergies, but the cook did, so mum worked with her instead. My brother was frequently off because of snacks in the classroom, or the cook being off sick. This was 20years ago, so I'm hoping things will have changed by the time DD goes to school.

Fortunately we're lucky with our headteacher Anita - his own daughter has serious allergies and he seems to be pretty hot on policies about it and ensuring that things are as well managed as they can possibly be in that respect.

It's a relief, as they've already shown to be so much more professional than the nursery. We've not had to have the countless meetings with them like we did at nursery either, they just understand it and are really careful (crosses fingers!).