Toddler Has a Nut Allergy

 

We discovered that my toddler had multiple allergies when he was a baby at just a few months old. He was tested for dairy and egg at the pediatrician's clinic as those are the two most common allergens for kids. They did both a blood test, and a skin prick test and it confirmed he is allergic to both.

Later, once he started daycare, he started to have skin reactions to soy and fish. We then had him tested for both and it was confirmed that he is allergic to both :(

But now, unfortunately, the list is growing as we found out at 2.5years old that he is allergic to nuts as well.

How did we find out or suspect he was allergic to nuts?

It happened during the holidays, when we were visiting family. The holidays mean many meals and only spending time with close family due to the Pandemic.

After one of the meals, we had cake for dessert. The cake that they packed up for us at the bakery was the wrong one - it turned out being a cake with a nut filling.

I gave him a few small tastes of it because he has tried very small amounts of nuts before and I thought it was almond. Within a few minutes he started to cough and I took him away from the table and gave him some antihistamines. We thought it could be milk or egg in that cake. But after maybe 10-20 minutes, his left eye started to get swollen - maybe he rubbed his eye we thought?

I checked with the bakery and the cake we had was Hazelnut cake. He had never tried hazelnuts, so we suspected it could be that.

We thought it would be better the next day, but his eye was still a little swollen. It wasn't until the following day, that his eye looked almost normal.

I made sure to contact the doctor once we were back in Sweden and after a blood test they confirmed he was allergic to nuts.

This week we spoke to the Doctor and got an update from the blood tests.

He IS allergic to nuts:
Hazelnuts, Cashews, Sesame, Peanuts and very allergic to Walnuts and because Pecans are related to Walnuts, Pecans too.

It's a sad day to find out he is allergic to so many things that we, his parents, enjoy. But as long as we are careful about what is in his food, we are just grateful his reaction wasn't any worse and now we know to avoid the nuts.

In most Swedish daycares, nuts are not allowed in any of the meals or on the premises, so we don't need to worry about any nut exposure there. Since he is also allergic to seeds like sesame, we gave the daycare a doctor's note that he needs meals without all the things he's allergic too. They have been offering him delicious alternatives and he likes having his own portions.

Eating in restaurants, or for takeaway, we need to be extra careful of cross contamination. 

The doctor has also prescribed us some antihistamine tablets that are easier to take with us, instead of the liquid form antihistamine.

If you suspect your child has an allergy, I hope you have a clinic and pediatrician that is helpful and willing to do blood tests to confirm your allergy suspicions. 

Will they outgrow these allergies?

It remains to be seen. Kids can outgrow egg and milk but for some it just takes longer. For the other allergies, his soy allergy has actually been improving! So we will see how it goes as he grows up.

Thanks for reading and remember, don't forget your snacks (that are allergy safe of course!)!