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With allergies as severe as hers, why would the family risk having anything available that could trigger a reaction. Personally we have a family friend who's highly allergic to peanuts as well. When they pay us a visit we all make sure that anything containing peanuts is safely put away. Tragic, but just takes a bit of common sense and this could have easily been avoided.
Exactly. We do the same at work, anytime someone is with us who has a severe allergy. Why keep a severe allergy a secret?
And I am still puzzled why the girl wasted precious time going home for an Epi-pen instead of making herself throw up and calling 911.
My sister has a nut allergy. Fortunately, her only reaction was to get hives. And decades ago, the advice that a nurse gave her was to take a couple of Benedryl and drink lots of water to help flush the toxin out of her system.
I suppose I also keep Benedryl handy is in case of needing it for someone else.
I used to run a fair food booth. We posted a prominent notice at the cash register and serving counter:
FOOD CONTAINS NUTS, EGGS AND DAIRY.
Some food, like the breakfast menu, was prepared with no nuts or dairy, but the potential for cross contamination was there. If people wanted pancakes and eggs, their allergies were their problem.
If people wanted gluten free, we directed them to the BBQ chicken booth.
Exactly. We do the same at work, anytime someone is with us who has a severe allergy. Why keep a severe allergy a secret?
And I am still puzzled why the girl wasted precious time going home for an Epi-pen instead of making herself throw up and calling 911.
My sister has a nut allergy. Fortunately, her only reaction was to get hives. And decades ago, the advice that a nurse gave her was to take a couple of Benedryl and drink lots of water to help flush the toxin out of her system.
I suppose I also keep Benedryl handy is in case of needing it for someone else.
Per two minutes of googling, found several sources stating vomiting can rapidly make it worse, as the substance goes back up through the digestive system.
Moral of the story. If you have food allergies, you need the carry the epinephrine with you at all times, just like carrying a wallet, cell phone, house keys, and ID. It's not very big to take along with you.
Moral of the story. If you have food allergies, you need the carry the epinephrine with you at all times, just like carrying a wallet, cell phone, house keys, and ID. It's not very big to take along with you.
You win the Internet today.
A teenager is old enough to know better. Don't depend on labels, not to mention that not everything has a label. Your misfortune is not always someone else's fault.
Throwing up an allergen is not the same thing as inducing vomiting in a dog or person who has ingested a toxic substance. In the case of the toxic substance, the idea is to throw it up to prevent the body from absorbing the toxin through the intestines and liver. An anaphylactic allergy is the body's own immune system going haywire; once the substance has passed the mucus membranes, that's enough to get the anaphylaxis going. Vomiting won't make it any better. The person needs an antihistamine (Benadryl is the easiest) and epinephrine to keep the heart beating while the antihistamine takes effect. And they need to go to the hospital, preferably via ambulance.
Not sure why you quoted my post and made this response. I'm well aware of all of this.
Of course it is sad the girl died from her allergy, but blaming it on a pulled-back label is ridiculous, in my opinion. A 15-year-old should understand the severity of her allergy completely and take appropriate care to avoid peanuts.
"Things can KILL me, but I'll just assume these cookies are fine." That is a really, really unfortunate way to think, and I believe it comes down to her parents not teaching her what to do every single time she is faced with eating something properly.
ETA -- And yes, to tack on the other comment directed at me. I do have teenagers. Maybe my kid is weird. He understands mortality. (Not both, as one is rather severely affected by autism.)
My kids both understand morality, but they don't necessarily apply it to themselves. My 17-year-old is very vigilant about some things, but he's very lackadaisical about others. Honestly, a couple of years ago, I could trust him mroe to keep himself safe and not take stupid risks. There seems to be something about turning 17 that has made him feel even more invincible than he did before. Or it might be that the "freedom" of adulthood is so close that he can taste it and he thinks that he should start making all of his own decisions with his not-fully-developed brain. That's what teenagers do.
My 15-year-old is the one with the epi-pen, which she carries everywhere mainly because I have drilled it into her. She thinks nothing will happen to her, but I make her take it anyway. She also has a heart issue and was on restricted activity for a while, which I had to enforce because she felt like if she was not in the hospital anymore, she was probably fine. And she chews gum and eats popcorn with her braces because she knows better than the orthodontist. She once broke two brackets eating popcorn and was shocked. What the dentist had said could happen actually happened! I saw her eating popcorn again the other night and I reminded her that she only gets two more freebie fixes (four bracket fixes come with the treatment fee), and after that she has to pay for them. "She" meaning her personally, because I'm not paying for her carelessness. (Obviously I would pay, but she would have to pay me back.)
They think that since nothing bad has happened yet (or recently), nothing bad will happen. My son hasn't needed to use his inhaler in a couple of years because he hasn't had a bad enough cold or flu in that long. My daughter only had one reaction to shellfish when she was 5, so since nothing bad has happened in 10 years, she might not understand the gravity of the situation.
The 15-year-old who died probably thought, "I haven't had a reaction in so long; what's the harm?" Or she just wasn't thinking at all because in her mind, she wasn't at risk. If she knew she was at risk, she would have been vigilant about carrying her epi-pen. Her parents probably assumed she knew to take it. And they also probably assumed she knew to call 911 in case of a reaction... my daughter's pediatrician has told her this many times. At 15, she probably felt that was overkill (because she knew better than the doctors) and didn't want to be embarrassed by telling her friend to call an ambulance.
So I don't think this was necessarily a case of poor parenting or of parents/doctors who didn't make sure that the girl knew how to care for herself and her allergy. I think it was more a matter of a teenager acting like a teenager and making a very poor decision that resulted in her death. It's not really any different from teens who die from their type 1 diabetes due to not testing their blood sugar or teens who get into the car with a drunk driver despite their parents saying over and over again that they must NOT do that. Or teens who race with their cars or who use drugs or have unprotected sex and all of the other stupid and dangerous things that teenagers do, despite their parents teaching them not to.
This parenting-a-teen thing is terrifying. Teenagers are kids in adult bodies with a good bit of freedom (nobody supervises their teenager every minute), and they can basically do what they want. Most of us are lucky in that our stupidity didn't kill us. Very few of us always made great decisions as teens. I did some extremely dumb things and put myself in bad situations at that age. Nothing really bad ever happened to me, but that wasn't because I had some ultra-stellar parenting... it's mostly due to pure dumb luck. Most kids with food allergies will manage to not die from them, but some will make dumb decisions for a myriad of dumb reasons and won't be so lucky.
Per two minutes of googling, found several sources stating vomiting can rapidly make it worse, as the substance goes back up through the digestive system.
Thank you! Unless you have personally gone through it there is no way you can actually know what it's like.
The people who say they "know" what it's like because they have a "child", "brother", "sister", "niece/nephew", etc., have a lot to say about it but have no idea unless they have actually experienced it.
Moral of the story. If you have food allergies, you need the carry the epinephrine with you at all times, just like carrying a wallet, cell phone, house keys, and ID. It's not very big to take along with you.
It is a PITA but I do carry one with me. Everywhere I go. 24/7....
Throwing up an allergen is not the same thing as inducing vomiting in a dog or person who has ingested a toxic substance. In the case of the toxic substance, the idea is to throw it up to prevent the body from absorbing the toxin through the intestines and liver. An anaphylactic allergy is the body's own immune system going haywire; once the substance has passed the mucus membranes, that's enough to get the anaphylaxis going. Vomiting won't make it any better. The person needs an antihistamine (Benadryl is the easiest) and epinephrine to keep the heart beating while the antihistamine takes effect. And they need to go to the hospital, preferably via ambulance.
Are you my birth mother in FL? Thank you for this post! So many people do NOT understand, they just assume. Thank you!
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She once broke two brackets eating popcorn and was shocked. What the dentist had said could happen actually happened! 
I saw her eating popcorn again the other night and I reminded her that she only gets two more freebie fixes (four bracket fixes come with the treatment fee), and after that she has to pay for them. "She" meaning her personally, because I'm not paying for her carelessness. (Obviously I would pay, but she would have to pay me back.)
Thank you for this post! So many people do NOT understand, they just assume. Thank you!
