The results are in - Adelaide does have a peanut allergy and should strictly avoid all nuts. We are both alarmed and relieved. It's good to know why her asthma has been flaring up and the cause behind some of her recent breathing problems. Now we can work toward fixing the situation. But, it is scary that the cause is such a dangerous allergy.
Being the overprotective parents that we are, we immediately vowed to grow and process all our own food, decided to never let her interact with other grubby children, and banned Adelaide from putting anything in her mouth that wasn't first personally inspected by one of her parents... Seriously, we almost did.
Okay, we haven't gone quite that far (yet). But, we did kick into red alert mode. We've got benadryl and EpiPens, and kept the pediatrician way over the office's closing time answering all our many questions. The amount of info out there on peanut allergies, lots of it conflicting, is tremendous - but we are determined to read it all (at least all the reputable stuff). We've already learned that we probably caused the allergy by being "too affluent," not exposing her to enough dirt, not breastfeeding her long enough, eating peanut butter while pregnant, having pesticides in our tap water, getting her vaccinated, exposing her to too many nuts, not exposing her to enough nuts... and basically we are rotten parents! (The internet said that, not our doctor.)
But, we have reformed! In our efforts to be good parents, we ordered a whole new collection of books ranging from topics including "not-eating-other-kids'-food-at-lunch-time" to "even-princesses-have-allergies." She also got a stylish new bracelet. Well, she thinks it's stylish. We're hoping the bright orange rubber band that says "PEANUT ALLERGY" on it will come in handy at large birthday parties or something. It had a 5-star reviews on Amazon.com, so you see we wouldn't have been good parents if we hadn't bought it.
And, of course, we de-nutted the house. We were shocked at how many things had nuts in them, or were processed in factories with nuts. Good bye Adelaide's favorite cheese crackers, pretzels, animal crackers and granola bars. Yogurt covered raisins, cereals, multi-grain bread... they all got the boot.
So, we'll be up late many nights this week memorizing long lists of things that are safe and things that may have nut traces lurking inside - because we really want to use the Benadryl and EpiPen as little as possible (like never).
So, if we visit your house and bring our own food, or give you the third degree about the snack you prepared, or even start rooting through your trash to read the back of the bags various ingredients came in... please forgive us...
Hey there cutie pie!
Being the overprotective parents that we are, we immediately vowed to grow and process all our own food, decided to never let her interact with other grubby children, and banned Adelaide from putting anything in her mouth that wasn't first personally inspected by one of her parents... Seriously, we almost did.
We'd do anything to protect
our little girlie girl.
Okay, we haven't gone quite that far (yet). But, we did kick into red alert mode. We've got benadryl and EpiPens, and kept the pediatrician way over the office's closing time answering all our many questions. The amount of info out there on peanut allergies, lots of it conflicting, is tremendous - but we are determined to read it all (at least all the reputable stuff). We've already learned that we probably caused the allergy by being "too affluent," not exposing her to enough dirt, not breastfeeding her long enough, eating peanut butter while pregnant, having pesticides in our tap water, getting her vaccinated, exposing her to too many nuts, not exposing her to enough nuts... and basically we are rotten parents! (The internet said that, not our doctor.)
There are probably pesticides in the snow too...
But, we have reformed! In our efforts to be good parents, we ordered a whole new collection of books ranging from topics including "not-eating-other-kids'-food-at-lunch-time" to "even-princesses-have-allergies." She also got a stylish new bracelet. Well, she thinks it's stylish. We're hoping the bright orange rubber band that says "PEANUT ALLERGY" on it will come in handy at large birthday parties or something. It had a 5-star reviews on Amazon.com, so you see we wouldn't have been good parents if we hadn't bought it.
And, of course, we de-nutted the house. We were shocked at how many things had nuts in them, or were processed in factories with nuts. Good bye Adelaide's favorite cheese crackers, pretzels, animal crackers and granola bars. Yogurt covered raisins, cereals, multi-grain bread... they all got the boot.
TRASHED!!!!!!
(Not really, we gave it away so as not to waste food.)
So, we'll be up late many nights this week memorizing long lists of things that are safe and things that may have nut traces lurking inside - because we really want to use the Benadryl and EpiPen as little as possible (like never).
So, if we visit your house and bring our own food, or give you the third degree about the snack you prepared, or even start rooting through your trash to read the back of the bags various ingredients came in... please forgive us...
You see, this wonderful little girl
means the world to us.
We'll act like crazy, over-the-top, annoying
overprotective parents if that's what it
takes to keep her growing healthy and strong.
We love you Adelaide.
this post almost made me cry *hugs* she is one lucky little girl.
ReplyDelete(to have you two as parents, not to have the allergy)
ReplyDeleteMan she must have a bad allergy. We have the Epi and benadryl always on hand but Jesse has never had a reaction to the smell and he can eat things that have been processed on the same equipment. However when we were rating where we wanted to live we put all of the cities with large peanut plants at the bottom ppf our list for fear that it would make his allergy worse. We have have come close but never had to use the epi. We stayed with ken and Becky while we looked for an apt and Jesse took a bite of my Pb&j while I was on the phone believe me the reaction is really scarry. You don't ever want to experience it.
ReplyDeleteThis big problem is what it's doing to her asthma. She struggles to beath and can't run even ten feet without getting winded. So, we need to take her off everything to let her airways heal. Even after a couple days she's already stopped snoring and wheezing. The doctor wants her totally off everything while her immune system is developing to keep it from getting overly sensitized. Things might lighten up when she reaches elementary school. She may even be able to have tree nuts again at that point, but we'll have to see.
DeleteWOW! So glad you found what was causing the problem! Nut allergies sound like a big deal....I hope you can make an easy transition. I know quite a few kids with this allergy, it seems to be more common these days. You guys are amazing parents. Good luck with everything- I am sure the worst is just worrying that something might happen to her :( We will fully support any changes to our home when you visit! (hopefully that will be soon) love you guys!
Delete