I don't think it makes sense, either.  I think it could happen, perhaps.  My son passed a food challenge and then reacted to small, not trace, amounts of the food and now has a lower threshold for the food.  Very weird.  His threshold level changed wildly in the past 7 years since he had ana to that food, went on the pass a challenge, reacted to tiny amounts, and now can eat more than the tiny amounts that cased that reaction.  We have been told and tend to think that we either grow into or grow out of allergies but my son shows it isn't always a straight line or always that simple.

But in any case I do not think there is any way they can say with certainty that the child reacted to trace peanut.  How can they know it was for sure PEANUT.  A lot of peanut allergic kids are also allergic to one or more tree nuts.  There are some tree nuts that are not commonly used by manufacturers.  I know of several kids who didn't find out they were allergic to a more rarely used nut until they were much older because they just hand't ever eaten something with that particular tree nut in it.  So, I will sit undecided on that story for now. 

The trace dose person--I wonder if she might have an as of yet undiagnosed nut allergy to some less common nut and reacted to that rather than peanut xcontam in the baked goods. 

Just seeing this now.  Wow, GN, three peanut M&Ms a day is what DS has been taking for over a year now.  He has been doing just fine, but hearing this is scary indeed. 

She actually reacted twice - first time exercise may have been a factor, as she had been on a long walk after her nightly dose. Second time, no.

This is a teen , BTW, who had no memory of previous Ana reactions as a small child. She had been reaction-free for quite some time. 

Recently someone posted on our local support group board (someone I've never met, which is not unusual since we haven't met in person in years) that her DD who had been successfully going through OIT anaphylaxed from a trace amount.  She had been up to 3 peanut M&M's a day, and got some cross-contam baked goods by mistake.

Quite disheartening.

{cringe}

Yeah, hey-- who WOULDN'T use their real name, location, and post their child(ren)'s medical information publicly?

 

Good.

Maybe I should detail what a visit with Dr. Li is like to illustrate what happens even inside a private TCM clinic outside the FDA purview.

It gets routed through Mt. Sinai. In order to be seen you must get a full standard blood work up including (if I remember correctly) complete blood count, IgE levels total and food specific. She reviews the blood work, and in my case she was the first to diagnose my single-line neutrophil deficiency correctly which was later confirmed at a second opinion appointment at Harvard Med.

We didn't talk about feng shui, other supplements, chi, nothing of that sort. In TCM herbs it's common for the doc to want you to stay away from certain foods or drink often times because of its diuretic effects. She didn't even bring that up - I did, and even then she had no concerns.

Now, she did sneak some acupuncture on me but that was unrelated. She heard how hectic life circumstances were so she wanted me to chill the heck out. For the record none of our family use acupuncture we don't like having the skin punctured. Moral of the story is we walked a firm medical line even with an herbal formula. There was nothing mystical about it and THAT is how it usually rolls.