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Thanks!! I am working on getting over the Epi fear.
And I have been reading and listening to the Benadryl can't save you, but I am still afraid that I am going to use it too soon or when not needed and put myself in cardiac arrest.
Epinephrine is a safe drug, with the risks of anaphylaxis outweighing any risks of administering the medication. Extra caution is only needed for elderly patients or those with known heart disease where an increased heart rate could be problematic. Nonetheless, epinephrine should be used to treat anaphylaxis in these individuals.
I didn't realize that the US did not and now that we are in AZ I hardly see anything labeled for trace amounts of sesame.
Tested 55 food items and all the environmental and animals for this area.
Told me to make the cll when it comes to epi. That it is a fine line and that better to be safe than sorry, but to also try to stay calm during reaction to make sure that if I am panicking I don't make it worse.
So on Mar 5th, I ill get results and we will see what happens in the mean time. Until then I am supposed to avoid as much as I can.
Have your doctor create a written Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Emergency Care Plan so that you and others will know what to do in the event of a reaction.
Well, but our allergist has never "given us" an emergency action plan in writing, either-- simply gone over the anaphylaxis grading chart, discussed which symptoms merit immediate epi, which ones merit wait-and-see-- assuming NO known exposure, I mean.
With known exposure we epi either way.
I do think that fully vetting all of your basic ingredients with some phone calls to manufacturers is a good idea. If you post brands/sizes in Manufacturers here, others may be able to help you (or confirm what CSR's tell you with separate phone inquiries).
For the most part we do everything from scratch. No seasonings at all. The only herbs I use are fresh grown. I do use salt on occasion and pepper. We do use real butter and for the most part stay away from oils (olive oil on occasion) and there is a canola mayonnaise I have used before but not recently. While we know the sesame is complicated, he really does believe the problem is more with nuts. Some of these reactions are happening more on inhaled and they didn't before. But because where we are living, there are nuts all over that it is possible I am just being over exposed and making problem worse, which could account for major increase in reactions. Also since I am the one who does most of the cooking, we really have little room for cross contamination. Our home is a nut free home. And while my kids do eat cereal on occasion and other snacks, we make sure not to get anything with nuts etc in them.
We will be able to compare blood levels to those drawn a couple years ago, so hopefully that will give us some insight as well. He REALLY wants to do the skin test, but we are trying to figure out how to get me there. My gut instinct says this is a nut issue. And because they are everywhere around me it is just getting worse. I could be wrong but I think the peanut is going to come back significantly elevated compared to before. But we will find out.
When it comes to injecting. I have had 3 reactions now in past week, not from eating anything. I tried staying away from parents house to see if that helped some and didn't notice much. So tried to eat dinner there last night and after being inside for about 30 mins, reaction started. I took the liquid children's benadryl and pepcid as soon as I felt anything and my throat and chest relaxed. I did get barky cough and have palpitations after and very funny feeling in chest. But I didn't use Epi because the other symptoms relaxed. I am thinking that I was dehydrated from blood draw earlier and that led to some of it. But in a case like that would you use Epi? The grading chart doesn't help me much at that point because I am not feeling tightness anymore. And that is why I am kind of stuck. Yes there are birds in their house, but they are also outside my house. So really hard to get completely away.