Thursday, November 13, 2014

Egg Allergy

My children come from a family with very few allergies to food. Skin is a whole different story, but foods are generally a-ok in our world.

Benjamin has eaten everything under the sun (well, until he shunned food from 13-months until present). He's a peanut butter addict. He's tried everything that causes common allergies in kids and has never shown a single reaction.

Claire appeared to be following in his footsteps until about two weeks ago. She's had whole peanuts (!) that her brother stuck in her mouth. I fished them out, but the remnants were still there. Her bottles are washed in the same sink as peanut butter infested spoons and knives. The oil is on everything! I've concluded that if she has even a mild reaction to peanuts, it won't be severe. 

At her 9-month pediatrician appointment, the doctor encouraged us to give her peanut butter and all known allergens in small bits to help her body tolerate any foods she might later struggle to manage. He encouraged just about everything. It's interesting how different the doctors in one practice can be. Since we see just about all the doctors, they all provide different advice.

I decided to give her egg. It had nothing to do with what the doctor said and all because we happened to have some leftover eggs in the fridge that I wanted to use. Egg is soft, chewy, full of protein and something she can feed herself with little choking hazard. At her age, Benjamin was eating eggs often and loved them. Let's not talk about what he eats now... eggs aren't on the {very small} list.

Over the last month, I gave her scrambled eggs three times. The first two times, no reaction. She liked the eggs and they were easy to chew with her four teeth. The third time was an entirely different experience. This time, within two hours of eating the eggs from the exact same batch as the first two, she vomited profusely four times within a 45-minute period. And then done. No more reaction or lingering sickness. The egg was cleared from her system. I figured she had a reaction to whole egg, but could still eat eggs in baked goods as I'd assumed she'd eaten in pancakes and other muffins.

We went on a playdate last Friday morning and they had freshly baked pumpkin muffins. I gave Claire the equivalent of a teaspoon total of the muffin. She was fine and then two hours later, vomit everywhere. She vomited 3 different times over the course of the hour and had about the same reaction she did when I gave her scrambled egg the last time.

I thought she'd had a bunch of baked goods by now, and she has. Baked breads, croissants and pancakes I thought were made with egg. It turns out, none of those baked items she's eaten actually contained egg! These two times may be a fluke, but I'm not willing to risk it right now, having watched my daughter profusely vomit all over me many, many times over the last two weeks.

I've had two friends recently deal with some serious food allergy situations and Claire happened to also be dealing with her own (more minor) allergy over here. We thought we could slide under the radar on these food allergies because we don't have any ourselves, but nope.

Additional random tidbit: Claire has the Photic sneeze reflex just like me! It's hereditary and common among only 18-35% of the population. We learned about it through a Veggie Tales song Benjamin was watching on YouTube. Funny.

6 comments:

Amy L. said... [Reply to comment]

Oh, no! I'm sorry about the egg allergy. They're a go to food here because they're so quick and easy. Asher doesn't have food allergies (we don't, either), but twice in the last couple of weeks he's gotten rashes on his face immediately after getting (rubbing) fruit on it. The first was fruit from a Costco fruit bowl, which he's had several times, and today it was my mom's homemade cinnamon applesauce, his third serving of it in a week. Weird.) Asher inherited photic sneeze response from me. My brother has it, too, as did one of our maternal great grandpas. I love that!

Veronica said... [Reply to comment]

Oh man, I AM SORRY! Gah, you know Theo has a slew of allergies.... and Daniel and I have NONE. Zero. I can eat anything under the sun, and nothing happens to me.

We've been giving egg yolk to Theo since 9/10 months (and actually got him started on it after I read back in your blog to see what kind of regular foods you were serving Benjamin!!), but when we tried the whole egg at a year, it was bad news. He cannot tolerate the protein in egg white. Again, we don't know if it's anaphylactic at this time, but the hives and rashes and welts displayed at a year are enough to let us know it's not safe in his system at 18 months old.

I'm sorry Claire barfed all over you, and I'm sorry it was after a reaction to food. That can be really scary.

Eggs I've heard are one that can be easily grown out of. Funny, because Theo can eat baked goods and pastas that have whole eggs, but gets rashy around the cheeks and mouth. But straight up is not OK.

Daniel has a co-worker that is "allergic" to eggs. As an adult he gets itchy and dotty all over his arms when he eats a hard boiled egg (let's say), but it's not as severe as it was when he was a baby or toddler (from what he was told by his mother).

Hoping for the best on that note for Claire and Theo with eggs!

Jenny said... [Reply to comment]

Oh, what an introduction to the world of food allergies! If you have any questions, you're welcome to ask away!! Egg allergy has been part of Evan's life, nutrition, and vaccination schedule since around 9 months, too. Don't give in to mama guilt... which is all to easy when racking one's brain for answers. And we love Dr. Segelene, http://www.allergistsdupage.com/

Sarah said... [Reply to comment]

Henry is also allergic to eggs, though his doctor says there's about an 80 percent chance he will outgrow it, so here's hoping! I've read a few things lately that say allergies may be linked to missing bacteria and our hyper-clean, hyper-antibiotic society. I do hope there's a solution someday because it seems we're rapidly reaching a point where every child has either asthma or food allergies.

LookItsJessica said... [Reply to comment]

Oh no! Poor baby! That sucks, because egg is a convenient protein and because of the checking and double-checking of items from now on. Like someone else said, its likely she will outgrow it which is great. But damn, how scary for her to vomit 4 times?! Avy puked once at Kroger and it was enough to scar me for life.

Becky said... [Reply to comment]

Bummer. Max had allergy testing done and it showed eggs, wheat, rye, and soy. No dairy, but we are pretty certain it still affects him. Now that we are done breastfeeding he is on a completely, his supposed allergy free, diet including no dairy. He has never thrown up like you described about claire. Ina fee months I am going to reintroduce each item individually and see what happens. I've only some vomiting from Max after he has anything cows milk related.