My scary afternoon

Yesterday afternoon was an adventure I'd rather not repeat. We ended up spending 1.5 hours in the doctors office, but everyone is ok. Piper had an allergic reaction to something, not sure what, and her entire face swelled up. Her eyes were just little slits in between huge puffy red eye lids and her skin was all red and blotchy. I thought about panicking, but decided that wouldn't be very productive. So I called the doctor for advice but the silly girl who answers the phone was of no help and had no one available to take my call. She told me to come in and they'd get Piper in right away. We drove over and a nurse came out immediately to take Piper's blood oxygen content. It was great at 97% so there were no problems with her breathing. Twenty minutes later, we were taken to an exam room where she screamed histerically while a nurse and a doctor tried to take her vital signs (I finally ordered them out of the room and did it myself - pushy mom!), and then examined her. They recommended allergy testing and gave her Benadryl and told me to keep it up every six hours for a day. Somehow all of this took an hour and a half. Cricket played in the exam room and was the most amazingly well behaved toddler during the entire event with her sister. We made it home by 6:30 and did a condensed dinner, bath and bedtime routine. Both girls were so tired that they crashed into their cribs and were asleep within seconds.

I have spent the last 12 hours going over in my head what could have caused this and I just have no clue. We went to Costco in the afternoon and I let them try samples, but it was all ingredients they had had before. They had cheese, bagel bites (they've never had packaged bagel bites before, but they've had the ingredients: bagels, tomato sauce, cheese and sausage), and Uncrustable sandwiches (again, never had these before, but they've had bread, jelly and peanut butter). So I'm at a loss. The nurse said perhaps it was the preservatives and chemicals in either the bagel bites or the uncrustables since my girls eat mostly organic food and rarely (if ever) have anything with preservatives or chemicals. Then again, maybe it was the peanut butter even though she's had it a few times before at home? I just have no clue...

Finally... I now have an order for allergy testing. On the form it says to have her tested for the common allergens: wheat, corn, cow's milk, tree nuts, peanuts, and soy. If I'm going to have Piper's blood drawn for this testing, is there anything else I should ask that she be tested for? Have any of you done allergy testing for your kids before?

Thanks!

 

Poor kid! How is she feeling today? I hope you find out soon what caused the severe reaction. I think the suggestion about it being preservatives and chemicals is a bunch of hoo ha (nurses sometimes say the strangest things, no offense to nurses who read this). Not because those items can't cause reactions, but because the items they ate really don't contain any preservatives and chemicals since they are stored frozen.

You may never find out what caused the reaction but it's quite possibly tree nuts or peanuts. Even if she's had peanut butter before, different brands contain different varieties of nuts and are processed differently so it could still contain a new allergen to her.

 

This is a stab in the dark because many allergies can cause a swollen face but I have a severe allergy to the skin (or whatever is on the skin) of mangos-did they tough any kind of produce? If I just touch the skin and touch my face, I get the worst reaction - I read about it on line and I guess it's pretty common. Just a thought? Hope they find out what it is soon. not knowing is the pits....

 

I am so sorry to hear your awful story!

My boys have a whole slew of allergies. We haven't had allergy testing, but I do know that the tests available for allergies are not very accurate. She could come back with no reactions, when in actuality, she is allergic to something they tested for. If you get a positive result, that's great, because you can know to avoid it... but if they all come back negative, don't assume that she is NOT allergic to something they tested for... KWIM? High incidence of false negatives. It's probably still important to watch her carefully after she has anything new, and to try to keep track of what you give her in case it happens again. Also, some allergies don't show up until the child has repeated exposure... something else to consider.

Hope some of this helps... I know how infuriating allergies can be, and we have yet to have a REALLY bad reaction like Piper had. Poor little thing!

Keep us updated!

 

QUOTE(Sue1968 @ Sep 23 2008, 09:00 AM) [snapback]993245[/snapback]
I think the suggestion about it being preservatives and chemicals is a bunch of hoo ha (nurses sometimes say the strangest things, no offense to nurses who read this). Not because those items can't cause reactions, but because the items they ate really don't contain any preservatives and chemicals since they are stored frozen.


FYI... I just researched. Bagel Bites doesn't disclose their ingredients online, but Smuckers Uncrustables ingredients are available. Here are the non-natural sounding things. I know not all are bad for you, but figured I'd like them in case anyone was interested:

Uncrustables: DIACETYL TARTARIC ACID ESTERS OF MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES (DATEM), MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, ETHOXYLATED MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, CALCIUM PEROXIDE, ASCORBIC ACID, AZODICARBONAMIDE, L-CYSTEINE, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, CALCIUM SULFATE, AMMONIUM SULFATE, CALCIUM PROPIONATE (MAINTAIN FRESHNESS), POTASSIUM SORBATE ADDED AS A PRESERVATIVE.

 

We've had two incidents each with each boy and were never able to figure out what caused the reactions (so far). We took each child to the clinic for each reaction (face swelling, coughing, hives). Gave benadryl for like a day and then had no other problems. I expect mine will have some allergies (I'm allergic to lots of stuff...not food wise though) but haven't had them tested yet.

 

How scary!
Good luck with the allergy testing.

 

Hope she's better today . . . I bet you were so frightened.

Hope you get some good test results back . . . whatever that may be.

 

Wow, what a scare. I hope it never happens again!

 

How scary. Good job staying calm.
Maybe it was the peanut butter? Often a child won't react to an allergen the first couple of times it comes in contact with it. Does she eat eggs and fish? if not you might want to get her tested for those as well. it might not be what she ate that bothered her but what it had come in contact with and there's no way of knowing that.
Hope you get some answers from your testing.

 

Just an update for everyone - Piper is doing great today. Her eyes are still a bit red and puffy, but she's her normal playful self and seems to have no lasting effects of yesterday's excitement.

 

Yikes. Glad the munchkin is okay! Good for you for taking it so calmly and getting to the doctor right away.

I would keep an eye on the peanut butter. I know that reactions can be non-existant or mild the first few times they're exposed, and then subsequent reactions can be more severe.

If the allergy testing doesn't reveal anything -- and often it won't at this age -- then I might ask the doctor if you can do a peanut test in the office. Basically, you bring the kiddo in, and give her some peanut butter to eat while the doc stands by with Benadryl and an epi-pen.

If she has a reaction, then you have your answer.

It's totally possible that it was one of those preservatives, etc. -- but, I think that would be unusual.

Hope you get to the bottom of it! Peanut allergies scare me so much, because I have several very good friends with children who have them, plus there's a kid in Nadia's class with one right now. Very, very tough thing to deal with....

 

i'm glad she's feeling better....

although i don't know about the chemical thing, i have a good friend who has anaphylactic (sp?) reactions to yellow no. 5 colorant found in many foods (nacho cheese, cheetos and all kinds of chips, and orange soda to name a few) so i wouldn't rule something like that out from pre-packaged bagels and the like....

good luck!

 

I know this post is very old but I wanted to let you know that I just had a similar experience with my 13 month old son after he ate an uncrustables pb&j! Same thing, he's had peanut butter before and jelly, and even had allergy testing done which indicated no peanut allergy! Last night after eating a few bites of the uncrustables sandwich for the 1st time, he had a severe allergic reaction and we had to go to the ER. The package says it could contain hazelnuts so I'm wondering if that might be the culprit.
Anyways, your girls must be teenagers by now and you probably won't even see this, but I'm hoping other moms who have a similar experience might find this helpful if they should find themselves in a similar situation. I was fortunate enough to find this post from you which validated my theory that the allergen that triggered my baby's reaction had to of come from the uncrustables sandwich.
Hope all is well with you and your family!
Thank you!