To think allergy mum is OTT

[Boogiewoogieanddance]

I genuinely don't know if I am or not, this is a genuine question as I thankfully haven't got any experience in having a child with serious allergies. I am, of course, happy to do what I can to prevent a reaction.

There is a child in my DDs class who is allergic to a list of things so we aren't allowed them in pack lunches. That's fine, I have no issue as I know kids can be careless and gross about their food hygiene. My issue is with the nuts, literally anything that says "may contain nuts" or "may contain traces of peanuts" is not allowed... if the occasional time I don't realise and send something (These are not nut flavoured things or anything with nuts in the ingredients, but I assume are just made in the same factory as nuts.) it is sent home unwrapped and she hasn't been allowed to eat it.

But is it really possible that an allergy can be so served that something that may contain nuts could cause a reaction if opened in the same room.

Many thanks!

My DD's best friend has developed a (suspected) auto immune disorder that means she is developing SERIOUS allegic to almost anything that isnt plain water and a plain boiled potato. She was asked by their manager if they should implement a ban on her allergens. BF said no because if they did then everyone would resign and the only person left on the team would be a person who allergic to practically everything....this is the NHS btw. BF and her husband are sorting out their finances so she can resign until a treatment is found. The reason there is no "go to" treatment is because her case so rare as to be almost unheard of.

The problem is that "may contain" is used when things don't contain but are made in the same factory, but also when it's made on the same conveyor belt, in the same mould, etc...so for example vegan Magnums are a "may contain" for almond and milk. I can imagine this is because non-vegan Magnums are made in the same moulds. I have a severe nut allergy and have reacted to some things that say "may contain" SOMETIMES but not all the time. I don't react to airborne nuts traces in an anaphylactic way, but the smell makes me vomit.

My DC no longer has an allergy but my understanding is that ‘May contains’ isn’t a legal requirement so there could be two items made in exactly the same way, eg in a factory that made products with a certain allergen, one brand could decide on putting a warning and the other brand decides on not putting a warning. The latter would be allowed in school but the former wouldn’t. Yet not having ‘may contains’ doesn’t mean that it may not contain, it just means a decision was made not to put it on the packaging. Only food manufactured in allergen free environments is legally allowed to be labelled as such.

My DC had a dairy allergy and you’d be surprised by the vegan ranges that had warnings that they were not suitable for milk allergy sufferers due to manufacturing methods. In my opinion, that is a more sensible message than a ‘May contains’ which is just to cover liability and doesn’t tell much on actual risk.

If the child is THAT sensitive that nut-vapours (from something nut-free which was made in a factory that also produces nuts) can float out of said non-nut containing product, cross the room and severely affect that child then I'd wonder if being at school is even safe for them? Before anyone jumps on me with the whole "But why shouldn't they" - I agree, they shouldn't have to miss out on school but is it really manageable? What if someone's mum was handling nuts on a Sunday evening and before next washing her hands she inadvertently touches their child's backpack or school jumper for the next day? Surely traces from the jumper or backpack could potentially kill the poor child? Soooo many variables.

Also what on earth do they do if there's a child with ASD or ARFID and the only thing they'll eat for lunch contains nuts? Then what? Which disability comes first?

Are you stupid?

Allergic reactions to nuts etc can kill people. Within minutes.

Does this mean you cannot send in a homemade lunch? So your child can only have the food in the cafeteria or pre-packaged food?

My son has a life threatening peanut and dairy allergy, m&s plant kitchen chocolate cookies used to say may contain nuts, so I bought a pack for him to try, just holding the biscuit caused anaphylaxis, so that shows they did contain peanuts. I note that m&s have now updated the label to state they aren’t suitable for those with a peanut or dairy allergy.

Read the fucking thread

And how is that relevant?

Are you going to police food of people around him for the rest of his life? Will a co-worker be allowed a mug of builder's tea?
Will his girlfriend be "allowed" a chicken & pesto sandwich and a cappuccino?

The thread is about how ‘may contain nuts’ is a safe option, no, they’re really not always, or are posts only relevant if we say they’re safe?

If he wants to live and not be at risk of brain damage due to oxygen starvation, he will need to completely avoid peanuts and ingesting dairy for the rest of his life. I’m not sure why you think I would be doing that for an adult, adults with allergies aren’t lacking in intelligence or independence skills.

I wonder with these supposed air-borne allergies how people have made it to school age . Realistically , if they have ever been on a train or walked through a shopping centre , been to a cafe or a restaurant or the cinema then someone around them has been eating peanuts or nuts somewhere nearby. If they've survived until school age then they really can't be killed by air-borne allergens. Surely that makes sense.

Wow I honestly did not realise that it was possible to have an allergic reaction by being in the same room. I always thought it was if someone ingested the food item.

Haven't RTFT but have read your responses, OP, and as others have said it really is possible. There was a girl at my school who was so severely allergic to nuts that she had a severe allergic reaction because a cook who had made a peanut butter sandwich for her child for breakfast hours before had laid out drinking cups for water later that day, and the girl had drunk from one. She was hospitalized.

I have a friend who has a child with peanut allergies and she finds it so hard that everyone thinks she is OTT when all she's trying to do is to keep her DC arrive. I strongly doubt that they'd be checking other children's lunch items if it wasn't serious enough to warrant it. I'd try and give her some grace. I wouldn't wish that sort of worry on anyone.

My son has multiple allergies including nuts (although non ige) his school asks for no nut products which is reasonable. But to say no 'may contain' is really tricky, so many food items say may contain. I would imagine this is expensive for you op.

My dd has a severe nut allergy (though not airborne) and I think that this is totally bonkers. I very much take the view of @Simd1 and @DanceToTheMusicInMyHead Though I do not feed my children peanuts for breakfast before attending events with a little boy who has a peanut allergy. And in general, I have taught my children to wash their hands and face after eating to minimise risk to others. We never know what people could be allergic to. A colleague of mine is severely allergic to pumpkin.

It’s a cop-out from the school to prevent them having to actually take responsibility for the nut allergic child. Banning of nut products goes against everything that Anaphylaxis UK advises, because it causes complacency. Children never learn to manage their allergies at primary level which means they grow up never feeling they have to. More children suffer anaphylactic reactions at secondary because of this.

Added to which, nuts are an easy food to ban because a lot of people just wouldn’t necessarily think to give them to their child. Yet there are children with such severe allergies to dairy products, and the school would never be able to justify a similar ban on dairy products.

It is pure virtual signalling on the part of the school to make their “may contain traces of nuts” stipulation, because it’s all about the label, and assuming that food is all going to be shop-bought, when actually more kitchens contain traces of nuts than factories.

I would be making a formal complaint to the head and to the governors.

I do know parents who give their nut allergy children ‘may contain nuts’ products but the severity of nut allergies vary enormously. I don’t know how people cope with this severity of nut allergy. You wouldn’t be able to use public transport, fly, go to a cafe or go to any public place without feeling anxious about the risk. It must be a total nightmare.

This is responsible parenting

As a teacher and a child with a nut allergy it is not possible to ensure all food in the classroom does not contain nuts. There needs to be better management of this child's condition in the class and of the lunchtime environment.

This is the most ridiculous comment yet. There’s every chance the child has come into contact with nuts at least once or they wouldn’t have the diagnosis. Have you ever witnessed anyone, particularly a young child going into anaphylactic shock? It’s truly traumatising.

The school are making a decision which protects the child with the allergy, the teachers and the other pupils. The teachers don’t want to be administering medication and calling an ambulance because someone didn’t think it was really that serious so didn’t care if something ‘may contain nuts’.

Your argument that they can’t have an airborne allergy because they are still alive at 5 years old is literally the height of stupidity.

My dds school are quite strict on this. It's quite frustrating but I've gotten used to checking the packaging of most things. I do tend to get one phone call a week where something has been taken off DD while they check with me

I do worry though because my dds won't eat the school dinners (and I don't blame them!) And I can't afford to buy everything individually wrapped. I prepare all the fruit and veg on a clean chopping board but we are generally a very "nutty" house.

I wish companies would do some to tackle this and lower the risk.

I suffer from non-food air born allergies and have to take a precautionary antihistamine each day. I don't always like to as I'm afraid my body will become too used to it and not work if that makes sense. But my allergy can be "just" a swelling of the eye to more serious symptoms, but not always the same. It depends on the threshold dose at the time.

Some allergies can start with needing lots of exposure to overtime the threshold dose being less to trigger a reaction and vice verser.

@marseille please don’t minimise air borne allergies (or ‘so called airborne allergies’ as you have called them). My DD had an allergic reaction on a train when someone sat on the other table across the aisle and cracked open a a snickers bar. That was 18 years ago and also how I first found out her allergy could also be air borne. We moved seats into another carriage as soon as I realised, and dealt with it with anti histamine- luckily we managed to stop it going to full blown anaphylaxis that time. We have had some close calls and terrifying moments whilst she was growing up, and now even as an adult she occasionally has a reaction after coming into contact with nuts.
I feel like getting my daughter through to adulthood and able to live with and cope with her allergies has been one of my biggest achievements knowing that she lives with what is essentially a time bomb. She is now in her early 20s and lives at the other end of the country, but I will
spend my life always with the worry that the next phone call could be that she is in hospital after a bad reaction, or worse. Please don’t minimise this. (though I stand by what I said in my previous comment, that the school’s stance in the OP is ridiculous and that May Contain items should be allowed in other children’s lunch boxes).

@marseille Just to add about the air borne allergies- my DD can’t get even through the door of the M and M shop in Covent Garden- as soon as she gets a few metres from the door she starts to wheeze, throat feel tight and tongue starts to tingle. Not that she is missing out much by not going in there (!), but when we visited London when she was a younger teenager she really wanted to go inside- which she couldn’t.

It's a massive problem "putting it on other parents" as many people have no idea about nut (or other) allergies....

Particularly home made food, where people make "nut free" cakes but have nuts in their kitchen.