Hubby was at work yesterday. It was a slow day. About 6:30 PM he went to the store to get something to eat. He bought a variety of healthy food, including some mixed nuts.
He called me at 7:30 PM to say he didn’t feel good. He was itching, and nauseated. He felt like he was choking. As he was telling me all this, his voice was getting softer and softer. I told him he needed to call 911, but he just kept talking. By that time, I was hysterical inside. I kept my voice calm, insisting he get help.
Finally, he told one of the other guys that he needed to take a ride.
The paramedics picked him up and roared into action. They gave him IV Benadryl, SQ epinephrine, IV steriods, IV morphine and three liters of fluid.
I got to the hospital about an hour later. He was ok by then, but he’d been on the edge when he got there. His blood pressure was in the low 80s when the medics got to him and still low when they got to the hospital.
They were ready to intubate (breathing tube) but the meds they’d given kicked in. He had to stay in the hospital over night.
His hands and feet are still swollen and he’s really sleepy.
He doesn’t eat nuts often, but he’s never had a problem. He eats peanut butter all the time. Now, we’ll have to be extremely careful about what he eats.
I’m having a delayed reaction to the whole thing. I’ve been crying on and off all day.
I was told by my allergist that food allergies can go from practically nothing to life-threatening in no time at all. I have a tiny, little entirely-stress-related allergy to peanuts, and that was enough for him to tell me that I should always have Benadryl on hand.
Best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery to your husband.
Can I join in on your thread, Picunurse? My husband, Jim, is in the emergency department right now, scheduled for gall bladder surgery tomorrow. He called me while I was at work yesterday (making up a few hours), and said, “My gall bladder is attacking. You have to come home right now.” He could barely talk from the pain. The ambulance he had called showed up minutes after I did; they got morphine into him stat, and he was feeling better quite quickly. After 10 FREAKING HOURS waiting to see a doctor in the emergency department hallway, they sent him home with orders to come back today for an ultrasound and more bloodwork (they didn’t like his liver enzymes). After another eight hours in the same emergency department today, they decided that bad ol’ gall bladder has done enough damage, and it has to go.
Massive kudos to the emergency technicians who responded, and who looked after my husband in the hallway all day and half the night. A huge, heartfelt FUCK YOU to the politicians who decided that Calgary doesn’t need first world healthcare (I was thinking something like this as I was cleaning my husband’s puke bucket yesterday, since there was no one else available to look after him).
I know we don’t believe in supernatural things on the Dope, but I dreamt that I was dying hours before all this happened - freaked out is the right word. My reaction has mostly been anger so far, but I can feel the fear under it, too. Here’s hoping both our husbands get healthy soon, Picunurse.
My reaction wasn’t as bad as your husband’s - but one day without warning, I had a reaction to shrimp. It started with itching, which I noticed was coming from the hives erupting on me. I grabbed some Benadryl and it went away.
The doctor said my next reaction could be eerily similar to your husband’s - so I just live without shrimp.
Some definitely are, samclem, (some people are more sensitive to nuts from trees, for example) but he’ll need to see an allergist to get evaluated for sure.
In similar cases, I’ve gotten RAST testing for the common food allergens, and made sure the patient had an epipen and diphenhydramine on hand, for to use while waiting on 911.
Good garsh, you certainly have my sympathies. My son is deathly allergic to bee stings, literally. And I missed the whole episode from the one time he got stung as I was deep in the bowels of the technical college in Madison, and he was at school 30 miles away, shortly before cell phones became common (so I was unreachable). His throat was closing up as the school secretary and an aide (thankfully, my sister in law) took him to the local clinic. They had to give him TWO shots of epinephrine. My sister in law was shaky for a month after that.
Then a couple years ago we found out he is allergic shrimp. Apparently there is research showing that people can “bring it on” by overeating something, and this maybe could include nuts? (no cite) He had snarfed down many shrimp at a family Christmas party, then a few days later went to Maine with his dad to visit parents/grandparents. Of course he had to have his obligatory shrimp dinner, probably several times. On the way home he broke out in hives. New allergy.
This is drama we don’t want, so we are careful about cross contamination too.
I know these things can be serious, too. I know my sister-in-law quite well, and have seen her with her best friend since high school many times; I even went to her wedding (that of my SIL’s best friend) two years ago. About ten years ago, her sister, who had a severe allergy to something I can’t remember now since childhood (not peanuts but something somewhat less common), suddenly had an attack while in a convenience store. She often carried around that plunger syringe with Benedryl or some other potent antihistamine. This time, she didn’t have it on her. She died of asphyxiation right there in the store before the paramedics could help her, at the age of 21.
There’s nothing scarier to think of than for this to happen to someone you love. If it were myself, I’d be content to live my life with the risk… But someone else, be it my child or wife or parent, man, it’d be in the back of my mind day and night.
That said… Try to relax. There are things you can control and things you cannot. Live in the present and embrace the love you have today, and it will last you for all your time.
My husband had a similar reaction to Levaquin the very first time he took it. One pill on a full stomach, and within 5 minutes he knew something was terribly wrong. He called me at work to ask what to do, and I practically shouted “Call an ambulance!” His was the worst anaphylactic reaction I have ever seen, and I worked as a ER nurse for 5 years. My sympathies to you; I know how scary something like that can be.
What’s worse, he’s an EMT and should have knnown better than to wait. We in the medical field make the worst patients. We wait too long, and we second guess our caregivers.
I have to admit, I’ve done the same thing. I have a wasp allergy. I carry an epi-pen. Each time I’ve been stung, instead of using it, I call someone. After a while, they’re hysterical, and I can’t talk, so I use the epi-pen. :rolleyes: I almost waited too long last time. Instead of calling someone, I drove to the ER. By the time I got there, I had tunnel vision, like I was looking through the wrong end of a telescope. My BP was in the 80s.
I know it was about the same as Hubby, but It didn’t scare me like he did.
Qadgop the Mercotan, I’m making him an appointment to be tested tomorrow.
Yes, allergies are to individual chemicals. Since each kind of nuts has a different chemical composition, someone could be terribly allergic to, say, chestnuts and able to gobble truckfuls of hazelnuts.
(I have no idea what’s the actual composition of those two examples, ok, names chosen at random.)
Glad your husbands got better, picunurse and featherlou
I’ve never heard of this kind of reaction.
This board pays for itself every day. pic How very scary for you. I’m glad he is ok now. Feather Good luck to your husband and I hope he wins against his gall bladder. 10 hours in a hallway? WTF is wrong with that?
