When she was about three, we discovered that the Daughter was allergic to peanuts. We discovered this after we ascertained that she’d had peanut butter (one sandwich, one cookie) under someone else’s care.
Frustratingly, we had been following the then-conventional wisdom to have her avoid the legume. Current thinking is that she should have been introduced to them earlier.
This spring, she was retested for peanuts, and she is still allergic to them, though her reaction was less than the last time she was checked. She’s not a good candidate for those peanut allergy cures you may have seen in the news.
Worse, she also tested positive this last visit for several tree nut allergies and now must avoid having them as well. This doesn’t alter our protocol in terms of looking for allergens in foods, though. Since peanuts and tree nuts are often processed in the same place, we’ve been preemptively avoiding those as well. Has THIS backfired?
Her doctor says, at her age, she is likely to have both of these allergies for the rest of her life. No change to medication – still keeping the Epi-pen and Benadryl at the ready, at same doses.
This has to be a drag for her because it sets her apart from others. Still, with all the various allergies to foods in our extended family, to gluten, and to dairy, she’s at least in the same boat as her cousins, e.g.
Ugh, yeah, food allergies. I have a cousin who developed adult-onset nut allergies, and a gluten intolerance. (What’s worse: she’s a lifelong vegetarian, so finding things she can eat gets tricky).
I have no life-threatening food allergies but have discovered that anything in the Anacardiaceae (the poison ivy family: mangoes, cashews, pistachios, pink peppercorns) brings me out in hives. And I suspect I have “oral allergy syndrome” involving melons and cucumber, at least when my other allergies are bad – a bit of tzatziki sauce once made my lip swell up.
I think a gluten or dairy allergy would be worse, though.
So far as I know, I have no food allergies. (I have one definite drug reaction: amoxicillin turns me a vivid scarlet.) I suppose I should consider myself fortunate.