So what’re you in for?

My name is Emma and I'm an alcoholic....

Ooops, wrong forum

My name is Emma and I survived milk/egg/peanut/soy allergies and failure to thrive with DD#1 (who has now outgrown them all, woohoo!) and cows milk protein intolerance and gastric reflux with DD#2 and 3, still negotiating peanut allergy with them, and hoping for lucky #4 to be allergy free.

What're you in for?

Charlotte has Peanut anaphylaxis. Moderate allergies to egg and dust mites. Mild allergies to tomato, kiwi fruit and dog hair. Wheat intolerance. We've also been told by her specialist to avoid red grapes (I am allergic to these) and cashew nuts.

She was retested just after she turned 3 in the hope that she may have outgrown some of the allergies or at least they had lessened in severity. Unfortunately the tests came back worse than her original lot at 14 months and we got to add a few more to the list

I did all the advised stuff to help minimise Kates risk of allergies during pregnancy and while I've been BFing. No peanuts, eggs, Exclusively BFing, holding off solids until 6 months etc. She had reflux until 4 1/2 months and it came back for a few weeks when we introduced solids. Seems to get worse on some foods which I am now avoiding with her. Unfortunately she also seems prone to little hives which Charlotte also got as a baby so I hope that isn't an indication of her being prone to allergies.

Not sure when we are getting her tested- does anyone know from what age they can be rast tested?

Hannah is allergic to cows milk, eggs and nuts. She has had some pretty bad reactions to dairy products but thankfully never had to use the adrenalin. She seems to be pretty sensitive to all those foods tho and gets hives from us touching her after we have touched that food (even if it was hours ago and we washed our hands), so I dont like to think about what will happen if she actually eats those foods again.

We have an epi-pen for just in case (partly cos she could have an anaphylactic reaction and also cos we dont often have doctors on call here at night/weekends, no hospital with ED and ambulance isnt always in town).

james has a allergy to cat hair and maybe grass although they wont test him on that one he has asamtha and eczema as well so its a up hill battle

James gets hayfever I suspect grass being the culprit as that is what I was really allergic to and gave me asthma attacks so have to keep a close eye on that also he's allergic to nectarines and the most recent discovery is penicillin.

Cuppatea - Spencer sounds like my gremlins, they were shocking refluxers when they were b/f even when I was dairy/egg/peanut/soy free but as soon as we weaned them onto Neocate at 3 mths they improved within a week and within a month the reflux was gone.

I forgot to say in my original post, Maya has sulfa anaphalaxis (not surprising considering my brother and grandma are anaphalactic to it too) and Mercedes is allergic to latex.

It's freaky. We picked it up when Maya was given Trisul for a chest infection by a locum doctor. My brother's is so bad that when he used a sulfa based cream on his dermatitis on his hands (he's a chef so gets it bad where his hands are in and out of water etc.) the skin literally melted away layer by layer and he ended up with 3 months on workers comp.

Ella has anaphylaxis to either cow's milk or seafoods or both (as we found out after a bottle of infant formula which is fortified with omega 3)... was dairy/egg/soy/nut/wheat/seafood free until her RAST test at age 1, and is now only dairy, nut, mushroom & seafood-free, awaiting a food challenge this year for dairy and fish, and another when she's three for nuts.  She hated breastmilk but the poor kid still had it till she was 9 months old, then switched to Neocate formula which she adores.  She had reflux until around 13 months old, and gets eczema. 

Wow mushrooms she allergic to.

I must say I have learnt a lot about allergies since knowing Andie and Ella.

Becks I don't know about the mushrooms... apparently my aunt had shocking reactions to them as a child (ah yes, the things you find out AFTER your baby's completely unexpected anaphylaxis! ), so while Ella's never had one, they can wait 'till she's 3 along with the peanuts! 

...and yeah, I don't think the 'failure to thrive' label ever helped anyone!  Mum was told the same of me as a newborn.  All you hear is the word "failure", eh.  I mean sheesh, we can see where the kid's weight has just been plotted on that blasted growth chart - don't need a charming word like the 'F' word chucked in there as well!