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Real Families, Real Stories, Real Success
If you would’ve told me nine months ago that my severely peanut allergic kindergartner who had reactions to peanut dust on someone else’s hands is now eating 8 peanuts a day I would have thought you were insane! I mean I would’ve been excited but incredibly skeptical. But here we are and exactly 5 months from his day one we graduated peanut OIT with Dr. Mayer in West Bloomfield, MI. Not only do we get to enjoy Dairy Queen, Dunkin’ Donuts and Five Guys whenever we want but also OIT has changed the lives of every one of our many family members. The same kid had his first ever sleep over this week. Something never possible before. I never knew about OIT until his first day of school when a fellow food other Chick-fil-A mentioned it to me. We immediately scheduled a consultation and got on the short waiting list.
I have to say now that the stress and worry for starting was so much worse than it was in real life. He had a very easy time in OIT despite having very chaotic schedules, activities, full-time working parents AND blood tests well over 100. Yet here we are. Maintenance has been relatively easy adaptation to our life and any schedule changes we have to make a well worth it to ha… Read more
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I never had any idea what life with food allergies was like – until I did. We found out with a tiny bite of a walnut at our kitchen table when our second child was ~18 months old. His face turned bright red, his eyes swelled, within minutes his voice went hoarse, his chest was welting up. We had called the peds after hours number and a neighbor with a son allergic to antiobiotics. We gave Benadryl and it did nothing to help while we were on the phone. The moment his voice changed we raced out the door to the local ER / Urgent care. That was the longest mile drive of my life at the time. Then came the epi-pens, strict avoidance, endless label reading, endless fear every time the phone would ring when he was out of our care. I became the hovering mom, the endless re-checker, the list maker, the epi pens everywhere, can’t have a babysitter, terrorized, running out of meetings to take a local phone call, stressed out allergy parent. People didn’t get it. We limited where we ate out, reviewed restaurants on allergy eats, called ahead, often brought our own food, grilled the waitstaff, grilled our family and friends.
Fathers Day 2010: The day started pretty simply, I had made my husband two pb&j sandwiches for lunch. As he was eating and watching sports, I was playing “tea party” in the other room with our 18 month old daughter, Emersyn “Em”. As Em and I played she would bring “tea” out to her Dad to share. At one point Em reached for his sandwich and he pulled off a tiny piece of the crust and gave it to her. As soon as she ate it she started to cry hysterically. I went to her and she was pulling at her tongue and it looked as if she had been scratched from her cheeks to her lips. At that point we headed to the ER and put a call into her pcp. The on call Dr responded and asked if she was having a difficult time breathing. “No” was my answer. She had calmed and the streaks had lightened. We were advised not go to the ER, but to give her Benadryl, and watch her. Thankfully she did not have further symptoms that day.
My son Nicolas is 14, diagnosed with peanut allergy at 20 months (post reaction) and we were living in San Diego. Our world changed and my learning curve was huge, I was just told to avoid peanuts. We didn’t have social media back then and found that people didn’t understand. We were strict avoidance but he still had reactions. His last one was major (to a “safe” food) and his Epipen fell apart in my hand. When medics arrived the Benadryl had kicked in and he had thrown up, they took us to the hospital for prednisone and observation. He still talks about how scary it was to not be able to breathe and I still (8 years later) can’t write this without tears, I was terrified beyond words.
Before we saw 
My daughter is allergic to peanuts, cashews, and pistachios. She has a history of MANY anaphylactic reactions simply from touching a surface with residue, and one airborne reaction at a baseball game with peanut shell dust in the air. We took many precautions, but life was scary. I remember asking our beloved allergist about OIT, and he did not recommend it for her.
As I reflect on our journey through OIT, the famous quote from Nelson Mandela speaks volumes: “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears”. I think back to the night before my daughter began the biggest journey of her young life. Making the choice to purposely begin feeding her the very thing that could kill her. The fear was real. We had spent the past 7 1/2 years protecting and teaching this child to avoid peanuts and tree nuts at all costs.
My son Tyler is 16 and started OIT in June. I will admit that I was so nervous about this whole program even though I had been reading about it for a couple of years since the beginning stages when this sort of program was done only in a hospital setting. My son actually pushed me to make the call and set up an appointment for the consultation. He is older now and I felt that I was no longer going to have the control that I have had over the years regarding his safety. As Tyler began his teen years I started feeling my anxiety levels heighten again. The thoughts of him growing and maturing and discovering his own path in life, making choices, decisions, and mistakes for himself without us ensuring his safety ahead of time were overwhelming.. After 16 years you kind of get use to the routine which has become our way of life. These thoughts brought me back to that initial feeling of fear when we found out that he had a peanut allergy at 8 months old, amongst other food allergies at the time. I remember going into Trader Joe’s market and just breaking down into tears because he was so limited, and all I thought at the time was “What am I going to feed my son, he is just a baby!” Peanu… 
My daughter was diagnosed just before she turned 2 years old with a severe life threatening peanut allergy. To learn that your child could die at any moment from even trace amounts of peanut, changes your word completely. I began to immediately research what a peanut allergy meant for my child and how to keep her safe. She grew up knowing she could NOT eat many foods that we all ate, and she became fearful of food, peanuts, and reactions. She was upset at parties, she wanted to be like everyone else. She went to special peanut free preschool and private kindergarten to keep her safe.
I am here to offer you HOPE.FROM OUR OIT NEWS BLOG
National Institute of Health: “Oral Immunotherapy Is Safe, Effective Treatment for Peanut-Allergic Preschoolers”
For Immediate Release: Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2016 Oral Immunotherapy Is Safe, Effective Treatment for Peanut-Allergic Preschoolers, Study Suggests WHAT: Nearly 80 percent of peanut-allergic preschool children successfully incorporated peanut-containing foods into their diets after receiving peanut oral immunotherapy (OIT), a clinical trial has … [Read More Here]
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