to be really pissed off with doctor’s response

[Blackcelebration12]

My 12 year old DS is a bit allergic to things & has asthma. He’s quite sneezy etc. But recently he’s also been complaining of an itchy throat when he eats certain things like walnuts & yesterday his lips swelled up when he ate a cake from a cafe.

So I am obviously concerned and wanted some reassurance from the doctor and their response was essentially ‘what do you want me to do about it’ and ‘carry some piriton’. Eventually after me asking, they agreed to refer DS for some allergy testing but only because I pushed for it.

Aibu? I came off the phone and cried because they were so rude and dismissive. All I want to know is whether swollen lips is a sign of an allergy getting worse/ whether son is at risk of anaphylaxis.

It just made me feel stupid and like I was wasting NHS time

It took me 12 years for my allergies to be taken seriously! Most doctors are awful and I cried quite a few times I wasn’t being taken seriously. I probably could have done better at school if I wasn’t so ill so frequently.

I was referred to the allergy clinic finally who are all amazing and lovely so you have done the right thing pushing for it. They are so understanding it’s was a great experience. I had immunotherapy completed and it’s life changing.

They told me a few weeks ago if my lips and tongue swell again (some symptoms have got worse since having kids) I must go to a&e so you aren’t being unreasonable at all. But again they are running loads of tests and checking for food allergies.

Don’t feel bad, you have 100% done the right thing for your child and I would do the same in your position.

Disgraceful attitude.
Reminds me of when I was going through a particularly bad period of anxiety and my G.P looked bewildered, sighed and said "Spied, you're going to have to pull yourself together".

I wonder what the NICE guidelines say here?

That is my go to for crap GPs

@GoldfishParade

YANBU. The NHS is a shit model to be using today with much higher population rates, we should already have switched over to a french or German style model. They are so stretched for cash they'll do everything in their power to not investigate things.

I got prescribed codeine for a bad back and was told to consider seeing an osteopath, it wasn't until I moved abroad that they actually bothered to x ray me and discovered scoliosis.

Yes, and not just higher population rates but the absolute misuse and abuse and downright piss taking that people subject it to, it really can't sustain the pressure that folk put it under.

Definitely complain. Treatment/testing for allergies here is woeful. Some people get great help and monitoring, whereas others are just left to get on with it and told to avoid the food they're allergic to. My son saw a general paediatric consultant (only because I pushed for some sort of help with a potentially life-threatening allergy) who discharged him as soon as his ig (?) levels started reducing, with the helpful advice to just keep testing him and giving him the food he's allergic to every few months and see how he reacts, as his reactions had lessened and he was no longer in danger of a massive asthma attack or his mouth and face swelling up if he ate it.
I couldn't even get him tested till he was nearly 3.

You were absolutely right to push for further testing. Allergies can frequently change. I had zero allergies before having children and now have to take a high dose antihistamine daily alongside a preventer inhaler twice daily. I have also had strange reactions to some foods/lotions. DH used a hemp hand cream recently which just being near made my throat react and felt like my airways were restricted.

If you can afford it, I would try to get the initial testing done privately, it may be different in your area but the allergy clinics often have huge waiting lists and now to add the backlog from 1st lockdown, you might be waiting a long time.

My doctor told me that allergic reactions are unpredictable, one could be an itchy throat and puffy eyes, the next could be anaphylaxis so you are absolutely right to take it very seriously.

The NHS is generally pretty shit unless you have one of the big three or Covid IME

I had a similar reaction to nuts. Not full on allergic reaction, just a really unpleasant one and i felt quite ill.

Turned out I was allergic to 9 different nut variants.

Your GP sounds rubbish, as does @chucklebubble's. Tbh, there are a lot of bad doctors out there but it doesn't mean the NHS 'isn't fit for purpose'. If the UK spent the same % of GDP on funding healthcare that other industrialised countries do, it would be more than adequately resourced. Considering other comparable countries additionally expect individuals to pay, contribute or self-insure towards their healthcare, it's actually a very efficient model, although it could do with some restructuring for the modern age and a complete purging of all the parasitic private procurement imo. None of this has anything to do with the fact that some doctors brush patients off where others would investigate thoroughly. Awful to be made to cry by a doctor, but happens all too frequently.

You are definitely not overreacting. My DS developed an allergy to certain nuts, including walnuts, at about 12. The first significant reaction was at age 12 (he's now 17), to traces of walnut. Our gp referred him to the paediatric allergy unit at hospital and he now carries a Jext pen and antihistamine tablets along witb his Venrolin, and is very careful to avoid " risky" food. It sounds as though your DS is similar.

I'm sorry you were treated so badly by the doctor.

Sounds like it could be a tree nut allergy - or certainly an allergy to certain nuts. You will definitely need some testing done to ascertain which nuts are the culprits so your son can avoid them (and all traces).

As others have said nut allergies are quite temperamental. Sometimes a reaction can be mild, sometimes more severe - and there all kinds of reasons for this.

I would definitely see another doctor and push for a referral to an allergy clinic. I actually googled allergy specialists and pushed for my daughter to be seen at the LGI in Leeds (we're Yorkshire based).

You really ought to be getting an epi-pen for your son also.

FWIW we've been dealing with allergies for years. My daughter has a peanut allergy but passed challenges to tree nuts so eats those freely.

Good luck!

Lazy lazy lazy doctor response and a lack of care. I vote complain and go to a different GP at the practice. I have a number of allergies and swollen lips aren’t a good sign. Plus there may well be other allergies, this needs further investigation and a referral to outpatients for further tests

DS1 had terrible allergy responses as a baby and I couldn't work out what was causing it. Symptoms included hives all over his body and wheezing. When he was about 3yrs old and after seeing countless GPs who didn't take me seriously, I demanded he be referred to an allergy clinic. The GP actually laughed in my face and said there was no such thing as an allergy clinic. At this point I said I wouldn't leave his consulting room until I saw him write a referral letter to X hospital with the allergy department which I knew damn well existed because my DM had been referred there six months before...his face! He wrote the referral and in no time we were under X hospital (UK), regular appointments, EpiPen prescribed and an eventual exposure treatment. Don't take any nonsense OP, you know your child best, keep hounding the GP. Allergies can be fatal.

I would get hold of an epipen privately if gp wont prescribe, and ask for another gp to discuss and get a referral for allergy testing.

I had to see my GP during lockdown because of a lump. All was fine and I apologised for wasting her time. She said no not a waste of time, that's what we are here for. That's a much more appropriate attitude.

I have a doctor in the family, currently working on a covid ward and they are disgusted with how some GPs are behaving. Not all of course but some.

My sister went to the GP a couple of years ago complaining of a pain in her side and it hurting when she breathed. The quack didn't even examine her and told her it was "probably a pulled muscle". No checks, nothing. 36 hours later she was blue lighted to hospital and in intensive care having pus drained from her lung. The ICU consultant was outraged when we told him what the GP had said. My sister, thankfully, recovered. Some GP's are just not fit to practice.

Standard advice:
Always carry a supply of antihistamines and take it as soon as any symptom starts.
Start a food and symptom diary immediately.
Read all labels very carefully.
Allergy testing is useful but is probably not readily available under the current pandemic situation.

Definitely report.

I had to ring a doctor a few months ago regarding my toddler. Couldn't have got a nicer man. We were on the phone for over 20 minutes and he went through everything with such detail and care. Wasn't rushing to get me off the phone (asked if there was anything else that I wanted to discuss, asked if I wanted to come in for more reassurance, etc) and did two referrals to two different departments even though he wasn't sure one dealt with children but he wanted to be sure.

I was emotional afterwards because it felt like such a relief to talk to someone who actually gave a shit. Then I realised that should be standard care across the board. Some doctors really are a disservice to the medical profession.

Report and demand to get a second opinion from a different doctor in future. I hope you get sorted out soon.

Keep pushing. I have had to keep pushing and also track down good GPs within an inconsistent surgery to get anything done. I once called back a hospital to query a doctors decision as it made no sense to me,
Given what the interest said - and it turned out that the advice she’d give was seriously,(potentially life threateningly) wrong.
On the other hand, I’ve had abrasive doctors dismiss something that was no an issue - unfortunately their terrible bedside manner made me doubt what they had to say.
I have taken to getting diagnosed privately and then Referred back into the NHS.

Please see another doctor, no one knows your body as well as you do and all doctors should respect this. My mother was in hospital for a respiratory issue and during scans/xrays there was a lump found on her breast, it was tiny, no one including her had been able to find it previously, this early discovery meant she needed very little treatment other than surgery. Please insist on seeing someone and being properly examined/referred. Early diagnosis is a life saver.

I have had similar. Twice my sons school has phoned me up saying he has a bad allergic reaction and to take him to hospital.

My gp said nothing needs to be done unless he is struggling to breath. If that was the case, I would phone 999 as no amount of CPR is going to help someone who airway has swelled closed.

I have also been suffering for fatigue for ten years. I talked to my gp about sleep apnea but they brushed me off for years. Eventually they referred me to a insomnia clinic ( I have no trouble sleeping and told the gp I had fallen asleep in a soft play ball pit and for a split second at the wheel ( so obviously very very dangerous) the clinic referred me for a apnea test, and yes you guessed it, that was the issue.

NHS is good at fixing stuff. They are shit at prevention. You cant prevent anaphylaxis or death at the wheel when you sleep 10 hours a day and have no medical condition because you are poo-pood for years as a neurotic fuck wit

My son has oral allergy syndrome. When it first presented it was apples, carrots and watermelon that made his mouth, throat and face swell. His breathing was restricted. I went to the GP and he actually laughed at me and told me it's impossible to be allergic to raw fruit and veg. I very calmly told him he was wrong and I wanted a referral as I also had actual diagnosed allergies to Umpteen things and several are food.

Sure enough, one blood test later and my poor boy is allergic to all nuts. Grass and tree pollen. Cats, dogs, dust... the list goes on. The allergy to fruit and veg isn't a true allergy, it's basically that the proteins in raw fruit and veg mimic the protein he is allergic to in pollen and so his body goes into over drive believing it's a genuine allergen. Cooking breaks down the protein so he can still have cooked food but it has to be things like mashed carrot and turnip and avoid lightly cooked veg like stir fry.

We are very careful and he carries an epipen and takes anti histamines everyday. But the antihistamines presents their own problem..... if you suddenly stop taking them or forget a dose you get a histamine dump into your blood stream and it's horribly itchy and uncomfortable.

We have had some success, in terms of both of us becoming much less reactive to our allergens by going strictly paleo but with zero nuts. We seen more likely to react when we are eating a diet heavy in processed food.

I would complain. Anaphylaxis is serious and worrying and you were right to push for testing, the thing is you shouldn’t have had to push and the doctor should not have been so dismissive. The doctor needs to be reminded about their duty of care.

@FraggleShingleBellRock I’ve got oral allergy syndrome as well. Can’t eat some apples, fresh cherries, grapes, almonds or Brazil nuts and also have bad hay fever and an egg allergy. My GP couldn’t be less interested and the only advice given is keep antihistamines with me and call an ambulance if my breathing is compromised. Problem is I seem to develop another allergy every few months. It’s a nightmare.

I would second what a previous poster said about taking extreme care with chocolate, in particular continental chocolate. One of DS's less severe allergies is to hazelnuts. A few days before Christmas, he ate some continental chocolate, the name of which did not suggest at all that it contained nuts. About 20 minutes after eating it, he complained of a prickly/itchy mouth and throat and a closer inspection of the label showed it contained a very small percentage of hazelnut paste. We managed to avert disaster by making him sit still - activity can increase the likelihood of a reaction- and take a double dose of cetirizine, but it was a reminder to DS that he has to check every label.

OP, I am not medically qualified and so am reluctant to give specific advice. However, as this type of allergy can be unpredictable as pps have said, I am going to mention a piece of advice we had from the allergy clinic. They told us to give DS one cetirizine tablet every evening at bedtime. Apparently, this is likely to reduce the severity of any reaction if an allergen is accidentally eaten. It also helps to keep DS's other allergies in check. My understanding is that cetirizine (or Piriton) is a safe drug to give in these circumstances, but it would be worth asking a - different- gp if this is a good idea for your DS, whilst you wait for your hospital appointment.

If you do decide to do this whilst you're waiting for a diagnosis, you need to bear in mind that the cetirizine has to be stopped for a period of time (I think at least a week, but the allergy clinic will tell you this in the appointment letter) before he goes for allergy testing.