Allergies

Our otherwise very good family doctor said to give "limited" amounts of nuts to the baby before age one.  Well, I'd already given her peanuts, eggs,  and cow dairy, to no ill effects.  Also sesame, assorted fruits and  veggies, wheat, and corn.  Probably soy too though I wasn't really trying.

Yesterday I have her a tiny amount of ground cashews.

Ten minutes later her eyes swelled up so much she couldn't see out of one of them.

Since she was breathing fine, I ran home and gave her a half-dose of benadryl (check with your doctor, naturally, but the dosage I was given was 1.25 mg/kg)*.  She threw up twice (before the benadryl, fortunately)  She got a terrible itchy rash from head to toe.  Her eyes eventually de-puffed, but she still had  some classic 'allergic shiners'.  This is actually quite worrying- contact dermatitis is one thing but signs of a systemic reaction are much more serious.  However, as she continued to breathe fine, I didn't take her anywhere to be observed at painful length, remonstrated with at tedious length, and given benadryl for the baby.  Oh, and a $350 bill to boot.

Intellectually, I know that my nearly seven month old with very mild eczema had nothing going on to tell me to run away from the tree nuts.  Waiting five more months probably wouldn't have prevented this and - based on actual good prospective research- might have made any underlying predispositions worse.

I still feel like a terrible mother.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I seem to have eaten something unfortunate myself....

*True story: a colleague and his wife once walked into the ER here HOLDING her epi-pen and requested someone help them administer it because they just wanted to make sure they did it right.  25 minutes of sitting around later, they did it themselves and walked out, because NOBODY HELPED THEM.  (Yes, none of this was a good idea.) So if I'm not having a real emergency, you can bet I stay faaaaarrrrr away.