Allergies

For those of you that don't already know, my son David has an allergy to peanuts. My husband also has that allergy, so David was bound to get it. At David's 1st doctor's appointment after he was born, we were told that he could not have peanuts until he was at least 3 years old. That was easy enough to abide by when he was 1 week old! It did not become an issue until last November - so we got through 1 1/2 years, what can I say. When David came home after trick or treating on Halloween, I sorted the candy and put anything with peanuts in a rubbermaid container and told my husband and my parents what I was doing. Well, at some point in November David talked his loving MomMom into giving him a piece of chocolate. He pointed to what he wanted and she obliged as all grandmothers do. What she did not realize was that is was in the peanut container and was a mini snickers! I happened to have been working from home at the time and heard a little commotion in the kitchen. David was spitting out the candy. I asked my Mom what was going on, and she explained. I calmly said, snickers have peanuts. At this point David looked and was acting normal. But, it did not take long before he was blotchy, itchy and lethargic. After about 30 minutes he started vomiting continuously. My Mom and I were never so scared in our lives. I called the doctors office and was told to bring him right down. As I hung up the phone, Steve walked in the door, so he drove us to the office. Although the office is 5 minutes away - it felt like hours until we got there. They put us in a room right away and gave him injections of Benedryl. We immediately saw an improvement - THANK GOD! The doctor prescribed him an EpiPen and gave us a script for allergy tests. A few weeks later after David went for his blood tests and when the results came back we were told we needed to take him to a pediatric allergist. With the suggestion of David's pediatrician, we made a appointment with Dr. Zuckerman in Kendall Park. Dr. Zuckerman then explained that David's allergy to peanuts is extremely severe. Out of 6000, his labs came back in the high 5000! So needless to say we have to be extremely careful with David and peanuts, tree nuts and sesame. Now last month, David came in contact with shrimp and got the hives and had the vomiting. It was definitely not as bad, but it was not good. So yesterday we took David back to Dr. Zuckerman and sure enough, he can not have any shellfish. He did not make him go for any more blood work yet, his veins are very small, but he says he is allergic to shellfish. The weird thing about that is neither Steve nor I have that allergy, so hopefully, he can grow out of it. I feel bad for David, peanut butter and seafood (not together) are my 2 favorite foods! This also means he will have to be very careful when he is eating away from home and Mom & Dad. We'll have to teach him to ask a lot of questions about what he is being served to eat and he'll have to keep his EpiPen close at hand. Let's just hope this is all the allergies he has - for his sake and mine!