The Epipen Incident

Becoming Allergy Parents: Part 2. Her whole face got puffy and her eye started swelling up. “Maybe some humus got in her eye,” my mom said, so I brought her upstairs and jumped in the shower with her. And then she stopped crying…because she started having trouble breathing. It was so scary that it felt like my life was moving in slow motion. It felt like a year was passing even though all this happened in approximately 5-10 minutes.

Click here to read Part 1 of our journey: Eczema Babies + Crying All Night.

When I started feeding her solids, my daughter started breaking out in hives.

I couldn’t find any connection or common ingredients between the foods that caused the hives, but her face would suddenly become blotchy, covered in raised bumps, and it freaked me out! Finally I called the doctor, who highly recommended we see a pediatric allergist.

Again, I didn’t in a million years think our daughter actually had food allergies. But maybe she was allergic to dust mites, like I was.

Because she was constantly breaking out in hives, the allergist said not to give her any new foods before our appointment. But the problem was that the next available appointment was two months away. That meant my 10 month old was relying on my breast milk for essentially her total nutrition – other than Cheerios and baby oatmeal. Those were the only foods she liked and hadn’t broken out from. That led to many more tears, because she was always hungry. And that led to me nursing her 8-10 times A DAY.

Finally the appointment arrived.

I was SO NERVOUS for the allergy testing.

I envisioned painful needle pricks, tons of tears (between me and my daughter combined), and all-in-all a horrifying experience.

But it wasn’t like that at all! It actually went surprisingly…great! (See my blog post about that experience here.)

When the nurse came back in the room after administering the test, I was shocked to hear that our daughter was allergic to peanuts, soy and especially dairy. An extreme dairy allergy.

I was even more shocked when the nurse pulled out a fake epipen to teach us how to use it. She said we’d need to carry an epipen with us everywhere we went from then on.

WHAT?!

After talking with the doctor, I asked, “Can we test her for tree nuts too?” He was hesitant. Apparently a lot of kids are allergic to either peanuts or tree nuts. But he agreed, and guess what? She’s allergic to tree nuts too.

And that’s why she’d been breaking out in hives as I fed her. I had been eating homemade granola with almonds in it while feeding her baby food.

I took peanuts, tree nuts and soy out of my diet and after two weeks, I put eggs back in. Turns out she wasn’t allergic to those.

We started introducing some new foods to my daughter, who was very hesitant. After all, she was now 10 months old and hadn’t been exposed to many foods or textures. But I was really excited to have her try humus.

The Epipen Incident

I picked up some humus without nuts in it, and excitedly my mom put some on a piece of bread. Natalie really didn’t want to try it, but then again, she didn’t want to try anything. Usually we had to trick her into taking a bite, and then sometimes she’d spit it out and other times she’d discover she actually liked the new food!

So, we got her to take a bite of the humus on bread. She started crying. And then she started breaking out in hives like I’d never seen her do before.

Her whole face got puffy and her eye started swelling up. “Maybe some humus got in her eye,” my mom said, so I brought her upstairs and jumped in the shower with her. And then she stopped crying…because she started having trouble breathing.

It was so scary that it felt like my life was moving in slow motion. It felt like a year was passing even though all this probably happened in approximately 5-10 minutes.

“Call the emergency number at the allergist,” I said. “Do we give her the epipen?” I was so scared to the epipen for the first time. Honestly, I never thought we’d have to use it.

My heart was pounding. “Stay calm,” my mom said. “Yes, give her the epipen,” said the allergist on call.

Thank God my mom was there. I was such a hot anxious mess trying to fight of a panic attack that I could barely function. I just kept praying, “God, you can’t take her away!” I was so scared.

“Do you want to give her the epipen?” my mom asked.

“I can’t; you do it,” I said. My mom had actually taught people how to use an epipen, so she was comfortable with it.

After getting the epipen injection, my daughter started throwing up. My mom got her dressed (cause we’d been in the shower) and I could barely get myself dressed, and then I carried my daughter outside while holding her tilted a little upside down so she wouldn’t choke on vomit and to help her breathe.

The epipen worked so fast that within 1-2 minutes, she looked totally normal again and was breathing just fine. It was just like the movies make it out to be.

Nevertheless, we spent the next 2 hours at the ER for observation. Thankfully she did great.

We went back for more allergy testing a couple weeks later.

Sesame. That’s what had been hiding in the humus, under the name “tahini.” We hadn’t tested for sesame before, but now we knew: She was allergic to sesame too.

And now she was too scared to eat any solid foods.

Click here to read the next leg of our allergy journey: Meal Time Panic + Why This Blog.

XOXO,
That Allergy Mama