Children with allergies

[Riley09swb]

The elementary my kids go to have a allergy table that kids with allergies sit at during lunch. The school system's thinking is they want to teach the kids to live in the world not for others to live in their world.

My son is in 1st grade and he is well aware of the fact that he should never share his food with others. You never know who is allergic to what these days.

[Kamsack]

Originally Posted by ellar

I agree that some parents go overboard. However, doctors unfortunately can't really tell with too much accuracy how a child may or may not react to an allergen, which is the difficult part. My dd has had an epinephrine shot seven times in her life (3 errors by relatives, 3 restaurant errors and one bad reaction to an allergy shot). She also has had Benadryl too many times to count. Each time her reaction has been different, which is confusing and often scary since we are never sure how bad she is. I guess it may be more obvious if someone's throat closes up, but my dd tends to have more blood pressure/heart problems etc. when she has a bad reaction.

The time she received epinephrine from the doctor, ironically, would have been one time I would have not given it to her myself. She had a tingly mouth and swollen arm from her environmental allergy shot, but it didn't seem as severe as her reactions from milk.

It does seem nearly every parent I have encountered at my dd's schools have been fortunate that they have avoided giving any epinephrine shots to their child with allergies. I do think if a child has never had a serious reaction than the likelihood is probably good that they are not suddenly going to have a severe reaction at school from an allergen they contacted through other kids' food. Despite my dd's difficult history, she hasn't had a severe reaction at school. We always pack her food, and she doesn't eat any snacks provided in class without a thorough vetting of the ingredients. She has had lots and lots of hives though at school from all those milk-loaded school foods ending up on hands and tables!

I feel for your and your daughter. I know how scary it is. Only once did our son have a epi-pen shot and that was when he was 4 in daycare/pre-school and someone spilled milk and it ran on the table and he touched it. He got hives, tongue swelling. The benadryl he took didnt work as usual (turned out it was expired) so the teachers called the ambulance and they gave him the shot just to be sure. He wasnt suffering symptoms of not breathing, just hives. But to be sure it was given.

I do echo though that it is so important to understand each child's reaction can be so different from another. No two times are the same and no two allergic kids are the same.