peanuts, shellfish and eggs, oh my

I finally bit the bullet and took Magnus to get allergy tested. For a year I've had a sneaking suspicion that he is allergic to nuts and shellfish. On the two occasions that he came into contact with shrimp, small red welts developed on his chin and upper lip. Not a great look. He also had a small taste of peanut butter while visitng my parents and promptly threw up on their rug. Definitely not a great look.

The allergist suggested that we do blood work vs the skin prick test, based on the reactions I described. Drawing blood from the arm of a three year old is no easy task, but we managed to get it done and I'm pretty sure there won't be long-term damage.

While the lab was analyzing the results, we proceeded to take our annual end-of-summer vacation to Coronado Island. We visited Legoland, watched the dolphins at Sea World and ate far too many sweets at Disneyland. I was sitting on a bench in Frontierland consuming said sweet when I noticed a message on my cell phone. "This is Dr. XXX's office. We have some important information from Magnus's tests that we need to share with you immediately."

I threw up a bit in my mouth while dialing the office. The receptionist put me right through. Dr. XXX came on the line in her thick German accent and said, "Magnus is allergic to several foods. Definitely eggs. He also has a severe allergy to peanuts and shellfish. I am going to order you a prescription for an Epi-Pen. You need to have zis close by at all times. You vill have to exert extreme caution moving forward as zis allergy can sometimes be a life-sreatening condition."

I felt my heart break into little pieces and scatter into the wind. No peanut butter sandwich, ever? No shrimp tempura? An Epi-Pen? Would my darling son be relegated to wearing an unsightly medic bracelet and eating at the no-nuts table by himself at school?

After we put Mags to bed that night I broke down to J. I had food allergies as a kid, as did J, but was it feasible we could produce a child with a severe peanut allergy, the type that could cause anaphylactic shock? Didn't thousands of people die every year from accidentally ingesting something that contained the enemy peanut? What about the girl that kissed her boyfriend, who had just consumed a peanut butter sandwich, and died two hours later?

The ride home to LA was horrible as a series of doomsday scenarios filled my brain. What if the Epi Pen expired and Mags had an episode? What if some asshole bully at school tries to force feed Mags a nut? (Note to self: need to enroll him in self defense classes early).

The small but rationale side of my brain decided to make an appearance and told the neurotic side of my brain to piss off, what I really needed to do was research. I should become more informed, first-hand, about the reality of food allergies. So I went to the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis (FAAN) website, read medical journals, perused the CDC Web site and visited probably 100 web sites dedicated to food allergies. What I found made me nuts.

The FAAN, a lobbying group, says 150-200 people die annually as a result of a food allergy. This statistic is also touted in news articles and on numerous food allergy websites. But according to the CDC, only 11 people die annually. Food allergy deaths are recorded and reported by the CDC, not any other organization. So how did the 150-200 number come about?

The math is a little fuzzy but apparently FAAN cites a 1999 journal study about anaphylaxis among residents in Olmstead County. Olmstead County? Yeah, apparently, there are few to zero epidemiological studies available on this topic. Interestingly, if you dig further into the study, none of the 133 county residents who had reported allergic reactions actually died from a food allergy.

What about the infamous story about the peanut butter kiss of death? According to reporter Meredith Broussard, one of the few journalists who is actually investigating food allergy stats and not simply parroting them, the girl, who suffered from asthma, had been smoking at a party previously. She died, not as a result of trace amounts of the peanut butter sandwich her boyfriend had consumed, but as the result of an asthma attack. Apparently few media outlets reported on the coroner's findings but most of them ran with the story of how an innocent kiss could kill a person with a food allergy.

I'm not under any illusions that our life, moving forward, won't be challenging. We have to read food labels, talk to Magnus's teachers and friends about protecting him, and carry an Epi-Pen for events when food is served...so basically, everything. I accept that. I won't accept the culture of fear and paranoia that tells me not to even open a bag of peanuts around him, when there is simply no scientific evidence that this sort of measure actually does any good. I've ranted on this blog about being too neurotic, the last thing I want is to turn Bubba into a fearful hypochondriac.

Anyone have experience with food allergies and care to sound off?