Hello, my name is Martine and my daughter Jennifer of 18 years now is allergic to peanuts and lupin with risk of anaphylaxis.
We found out that she is allergic when she was 2,5 years old and carry around the epipens since.
It was a real shock at the time to learn about this and it took some time to learn to live with her condition. Nobody in our family was living with allergies or chronic disease so it was all new to us.
I found out that the best support and the most useful information came and still comes from other parents and allergic persons.
I am so thankful for meeting like parents, and in the meantime also the kids, living in Luxemburg, Belgium and the Netherlands. The possibility to share our stories and experiences, to be able to ask for help and to get the support, both practical as emotional was live changing for me.
At the age of two, Jennifer was ill a lot and didn’t seem to get better, it was a concatenation of one illness after another. Therefore, the pediatrician wanted to find out the reason of her immune system not working properly. That’s when she proposed to do allergy tests.
We found out Jennifer was allergic to peanuts (lupin we tested several years later).
We informed kindergarten about the situation and they were luckily very helpful and we were able to work together to create a safe environment. After kindergarten, Jennifer went on to school. We always made sure all people surrounding her were well informed, epipens are accessible in case of an accident. We spent a lot of time and effort in informing and organizing events, birthday-parties, sleepovers, going to school, participating in sports, etc.
We were lucky to receive support from the people involved and different allergy and food organizations. We bought brochures from these organizations to distribute and inform Jennifer's entourage.
Sometimes it was and still is annoying to have to explain again in a restaurant or with family that this allergy is something to be taken very seriously. And we had a lot of stress moments too, especially when organizing events to host or to go to.
During the years she had some reactions to food, mostly translated in asthma attacks, skin rashes, hives, itching of the mouth…
She had a big reaction on holidays when a stranger tried to push a peanut into her mouth. The peanut had touched the lips and in a few minutes the whole of her face was swollen.
When Jennifer was 12 years old, we went to the CHL in Luxembourg to do an oral test. She was given a very tiny amount of peanut hidden in apple sauce. The first day went pretty well. The second day, the amount of peanut, still very little, was increased. At the end of the testing, all seemed fine, just some stomach aching. Unfortunately, she had a late reaction and some time after the test had ended, we were still in the hospital, she had a severe anaphylactic shock reaction. Hives all over the body, severe asthma attack, vomiting. She made it through with help of a lot of cortisone and adrenaline injection.
We did not do any more testing after that nor did we try the desensibilisation program.
She is now attending her second last year at high school.
Martine