Is there a known reason for (again, from various news items, so I could be working on bad information here) the high correlation between peanut allergies and allergies to true nuts?
The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network website has some interesting research and statistics, for those who are interested.
A friend of mine who has 2 nut-allergic kids has told me that there may be some correlation between peanut allergies and fertility drugs, which may explain the relatively recent increase in allergies. I cannot find that particular study, though.
At the risk of sounding completely selfish, I can’t help but wonder where this whole peanut allergy thing is going. If so many people truly can’t survive within 50 feet of a small nut, then it might just be easier to ban the darn things rather than having to bend over backwards to accommodate! (Disclaimer- I love and adore peanuts, so maybe I’m biased.) :mad:
Lucy: Most parental units with kids with nut allergies are not trying to take nuts away from anyone. All they want is that their kids not be given nuts in casual encounters because they can KILL them.
My kid had and has way out there unusual allergies. We never asked that peanuts be banned anywhere. We still ate peanut butter and had peanuts in our own home. The issue is when schools/daycare say they will do one thing and then do not.
Parents who have kids with deadly allergies have to make choices everyday about the amount of risk they are willing to take. Some go over the top and want to wrap their kid in cotton wool and don’t take them anywhere. Others want the world to change and insist that anything that can hurt their kid should of course be banned. Most of us, I hope, try to keep our kids as safe as possible by educating the people they come in contact with and trusting that they understand the true nature of the problem.
It’s when that trust is violated that we go ballistic.
Hi all. Sinjin’s kidlet here to check in.
Few thoughts on this thread.
- She’s not telling tall tales. Yes, my allergies are that serious and I’ve made it to the ripe old age of 27. So far so good.
I still don’t keep a peanut free home. My husband eats peanuts (though not as much as either of my parents), but we have to be careful that we not kiss after he eats them. I know that the story up-thread turned out to be an asthma attack and not a death by peanut kissing, but the truth is, I can tell if my husband has eaten peanuts and forgets to brush his teeth. It makes my lips tingle, even hours after. We’ve learned this by trial and error. So while that story turned out to be false, reactions by kissing (even pecks) can happen.
I also hate all of the new warnings on packages that say “may contain peanuts, tree nuts, soy, milk, eggs, human remains, water, etc etc etc.” So many of them are just there to cover the companies ass and it’s really annoying for me. I tend to still eat foods with these labels.
I do, obviously, avoid those restaurants with peanuts on the floors and all of the tables. I accidentally got brought to one on Tuesday with a work function and left promptly. I was inside the door for a max of 3 minutes and even a minor (albeit very very minor) reaction had started. But seriously, 3 minutes.
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I almost died laughing when I read that if my parents had only loved me unconditionally, a few peanuts in the room wouldn’t have mattered. Really, it’s not nice to make a pregnant woman laugh so hard (the fetus gets all worried about earthquakes).
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I have a question about the thread above re: wearing masks: Are you suggesting mask wearing for airplanes only, or for kids in all situations that peanuts are potentially out there? Because I can’t imagine making a kid wear a mask 24/7 because a daycare that says that they are nut free can’t figure out how to actually stay nut free.
I’m up for a bit, if you guys have any questions from one of those weirdo-s that has all of these allergies, go ahead and ask. I’m pretty open about them.
Oh, that’s just Kanicbird. He’s our resident, well, “nutbag”, I guess. (And lately he’s been getting worse.)
Thorium Indium Potassium: Thanks for the first person viewpoint – I often feel that most of us tend to forget that “they” (the folks identifiable as category X, like those who have peanut allergies) are people just like the rest of us.
My question: As someone who’s loved through it, what do you think is reasonable to expect of others?
And after I figured out your username, I love it! Really nice and subtle!
Thanks! Would you believe that I got the idea from a tattoo that I saw on a website? 
From my viewpoint, I think it is reasonable for a school/daycare that purports itself to be nut free to actually be nut free.
With that said though, I don’t think that peanut free schools are really a necessity. I was never in a peanut free school even though I have a severe allergy. The one reaction I had in school was the one that sinjin referenced earlier in Kindergarten. Nothing that bad happened again, mainly because classrooms don’t tend to have lots of open containers of peanut butter all at once.
As far as treats are concerned, my parents were really great about sending in a cupcake when there was a birthday in the room. And I got really lucky in terms of teachers/principals and actually had one principal who bought me a pack of skittles every semester for making honor roll because I couldn’t eat the ‘honor roll cupcakes’.
I also think that teaching the allergic kid, their siblings and close friends early is incredibly important. I could read labels for ingredients at a fairly young age, and it surely saved me a few reactions after adults had read the label and missed a hiding ingredient (I have all sorts of allergies and sometimes the ingredients are ones that people don’t readily think of (i.e. albumin for egg or casein for milk)).
Mmmmm…Skittles rule.
Here’s a link to the peanut flour tolerance building study they did in England.
Global TV (Vancouver) has a video online of their reporton this yesterday.
It sounds hopeful, no?
That does sound hopeful. Thanks for posting it. I’ll be interested to read follow-up studies.
Quite. There are other positive avenues being explored as well. It helps researchers a ton that peanut allergies appear strongly to be environmentally-caused and not usually a genetic issue.
If I were a betting man, I’d lay money on peanut allergies becoming far, far less prevalent within two generations.