Ears and Peanuts

These are the issues at our house lately. Dylan has had at least one ear infection for the last two months, so we had to go in to the doctor to have his ears checked last week. No ear infection for him, but we stumbled on another issue . . . Reagan is allergic to peanuts.

As I was wrapping things up with the doctor at Dylan's appointment, I mentioned some symptoms I was curious about with Reagan and the possibility of a peanut allergy. After I listed my concerns (a couple of rashes and some vomiting after eating/licking some thai peanut noodles) the appointment quickly switched its focus from D's ears to Reagan.

Immediately the doctor had the nurse draw some blood for a test and prescribed some epipens for us to carry with us. He went through how to use the pens and also an action plan should Reagan eat a peanut. We still weren't sure it was an allergy at this point and I was thinking it was probably a 24 hour bug, so I listened, but didn't really believe I would need to know this stuff.

Sure enough, the doctor called back on Thursday and the results of the test showed that she did have a peanut allergy and to be cautious we needed to clean all nuts out of house. We know there are somethings she's been exposed to that haven't caused a problem (banana walnut bread at Starbucks is a big hit with Reagan), but until we know more we're getting rid of all of it.

Luckily, it won't be a big lifestyle change for Reagan because somehow she instictively has always known that peanuts aren't good for her body. She's refused to eat pb&j from the start, so we won't have to take that away from her and she never really ate many things with nuts. It will be a bit tougher for John and I to let go of our peanut M&Ms and peanut butter. Since we've had these items in our home since she was born, it does seem that direct ingestion is what is having an effect and not indirect contact.

Only 30% of kids grow out of the peanut allergy and it has some of the most severe reactions of most allergies. We've been lucky so far, but the doctor did mention that it seems each reaction got progressively worse, so who knows what the next reaction would be like.

So to our good friends and family, if Reagan is at your house, please just be conscious of what you are serving (ie. no peanut butter cookies, PB&J or peanuts for our little girl). Like John and I plan to do, please eat these items when she is not around. We feel very fortunate that this is the most serious issue we've had to deal with thus far, but we are still very nervous about how we will deal with her allergy in the coming years as she goes to school, birthday parties, etc. without us by her side.