I was diagnosed with food allergies at 13. I ate a hazelnut and started to have a reaction. My lips swelled, my face was itchy, awful stomach cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting. I went to my doctor who performed skin prick testing and blood tests and confirmed the allergy and issued an EpiPen. Unfortunately, over the last 3 years I have developed more allergies including walnuts, apples, black pepper, strawberries, and I am dairy intolerant. I regularly perform food challenges to see if I have outgrown them.
I already take lots of different inhalers for severe asthma. I have an EpiPen incase of anaphylaxis but have never had an issue. If I have a mild reaction I have antihistamines to take but other then that I don’t take anything else.
When I was in 7th grade, I tried kiwi for the first time. I remember my mouth feeling very itchy afterwards and a couple hours later my eye began to puff/swell up. I got sent home from school with two (Benadryl’s?) I believe. After that, I was super tired and fell asleep. My eye was better the next day.
My little girl has been allergic since birth. She had a hard time gaining weight and would react to anything I ate when I would nurse her. She had eczema all over and stomach issues. Finally around 4 months we got referred to allergy. We found she had a dairy allergy so I eliminated dairy from my diet and finally found her a formula she could tolerate. As we introduced new foods we would notice she would react to them. Before she was a year old we had her tested and confirmed allergies to eggs, soy, peaches, carrots, celery, peas, avocado, bananas, watermelon, and peanut. As time went on the list grew to include coconut, sunflower, figs, nuts, and beef. Most of these items were because of reactions she would have when eating them and then skin and/or blood testing to confirm she was allergic. Over time she has been able tolerate carrots, celery, watermelon, banana, and soy! We are hoping to get even more items off the list!
We carry an EpiPen everywhere we go, as well as Benadryl, a syringe, and hydrocortisone ointment. We also use Zyrtec and steroid creams as needed. She used to get hives and itchy hands all the time but that has gotten better as she’s gotten older. Someone gave us a subscription to Allergic Living magazine and that was very helpful! We also used a lot of info from FARE and Kids with Food Allergies. Recently, we joined instagram and there is a whole community of allergy families with lots of info and tips to share!
My dad was eating peanut butter with bread for breakfast when I was three years old, he was touching the food I was eating and I started to break out in intensive hives all over my body. That’s when my parents took me to the hospital. Eventually we did overcome my allergy, a few relatives had kids with the same allergy so everyone was very accommodating to produce allergy safe foods.
The only medicine taken was Benadryl when the reaction was not life threatening (hives on skin) but an EpiPen was administered for me when it was clear the reaction was anaphylactic and life threatening.