Peanut Allergy Update

The girls have not been back to school since Alexa's peanut exposure last week. I went in to talk to the teachers and the director last Thursday, but the girls did not go with me. After talking with the school director and both of the teachers, the idea of sending the girls back to school is more frightening than I originally thought.

The director told me that from here on out they wanted me to provide a snack for Alexa every day so that this does not happen again. I told them that while I had no problem providing a snack for Alexa, it doesn't solve the problem because if the other 17 kids in the classroom are eating foods containing peanuts then Alexa could still have a reaction (and likely would). The director assured me that they are very quick to clean the tables after snack time and that if I wanted to check the labels on the snacks each day I was welcome to do that. If I found that the snack for the day had peanuts listed as the 1st or 2nd ingredient then I could request that the school provide the class with a different snack that day. Before I could even respond, I was then escorted to the storage room to read labels on all snacks they had on hand. (She gave me the impression that she thought I was overreacting).

After looking at all the labels I was taken to the classroom to check the snacks in the classroom. The teachers were apologetic and concerned with how Alexa was doing. It was during my talk with the teachers that I found out what really happened that day. Apparently we have Madison to thank for saving Alexa's life. The teachers had served the entire class their snacks and the kids were already eating when Madison told the teacher that she thought it had peanuts in it. The teacher told her that it didn't have peanuts and Madison told her again that she thought it had peanuts in it. The teacher then went to the box, read the label and realized that Madison was right and it did have peanuts in it. At that point they pulled Alexa off to the side of the classroom away from the tables. I'm not entirely sure what happened next because this is where I get conflicting information.

When I got the phone call that day, the teacher told me that Alexa had been pulled off to the side of the class and that they had her benadryl and epi-pens laid out and ready to go but because she was not having a reaction yet they hadn't given her anything. The other teacher is now telling me that they had given her the benadryl before they even called me and that she was giving her the epi-pen while they were on the phone with me. I find that hard to believe. Why would the teacher that called me that day lie about them not giving her any medications yet? It makes more sense to me that they are lying now to cover their behinds and make it sound like they did everything they were supposed to do once they realized she had ingested peanuts. - Which they didn't! I had to tell them to give her the benadryl and epi-pen and I had to call back on the way to the school and make sure they had called an ambulance, which they hadn't done!

Anyway, then they proceeded to tell me that the class has had granola bars on more than one occasion in the past and that is why she never thought about their being peanuts in them. My response was that I have seen very few granola bars (maybe 1 or 2 kinds) that didn't have nuts in them. So this tells me that she has likely been exposed to peanuts at school on several occasions. Next they tell me that "now that they think about it" they remember giving her cupcakes one day and the icing caused her face to break out and now they wonder if I thought that could have contained peanuts. Hmmm, do ya think?? Finding all this out has me wondering if the recurring hives that she had from mid September to mid November and the major asthma attack that she had in November were related to something she was eating at school. We had discussed that possibility with her doctors at that time, but her teachers continued to assure me that her classroom was peanut free so we didn't think too much more about it.

I was so upset after hearing about all the other situations where she likely ate peanuts that I could barely contain myself. Needless to say, I didn't spend much more time at the school and made a fairly quick exit before I said something or did something that I would have regretted. I did admit to both teachers that I was angry with them. I admitted the same to the director and also told her that I wasn't sure if the girls would be returning to school or not. As of Sunday I still was not 100% sure what to do, so I decided to keep the girls out of school until Alexa had her appointment with her allergist on Thursday (today).

The allergist appointment went well. This was our first appointment with our new allergist (the other one stopped carrying our insurance so we had to switch). The doctor was shocked to hear that she had 2 episodes in such a short amount of time and that both were the result of the school's negligence. The doctor assured me that I am not overreacting when I say that Alexa could have a severe reaction just by touching or otherwise coming in contact with peanuts. Since she has had severe reactions to tiny amounts of peanuts, and since she also has asthma, the doctor said it would be very possible for her to have a severe reaction to just touching peanuts. She went on to say that some kids with severe allergies (like Alexa) can have life-threatening reactions just from being in the room with peanuts and/or breathing in peanut "dust".

This doctor is also a pulmonologist, so we also talked in great length about her asthma and the fact that she has been on oral steroids 6 different times in the last 4 months. Alexa did a pulmonary function test for the first time and she has been officially diagnosed with asthma. Up to this point, her pediatrician had said that he didn't want to label her as being asthmatic because she could outgrow it and until she was old enough to do a pulmonary function test he couldn't be sure if she really had asthma or not. (Although he did admit to me in his office in November during her major asthma attack that it was pretty safe to label her as asthmatic at that point.) Anyway, Alexa did the test really well (it's not easy, even for an adult...been there, done that!) and then they gave her a breathing treatment and we saw significant improvement. So now she will be on a daily inhaled steroid to keep her asthma under control.

The doctor also asked about seasonal allergies. I told her that my mom has seasonal allergies and that I suspect that I do, but I have not been tested for them. They tested her for 25 different allergens, including trees, grass, dust mites, dogs, cats, and several types of mold. Poor baby. Her back looked like a pin cushion when it was done... she had been stuck in 27 different places. But according to the test results, she is not allergic to anything they tested her for. That's a relief, but I am also cautious that the results may not have been accurate since she was taking antihistamines so recently. I told the doctor that her last dose was on January 9th and she said that it was long enough ago that the test should be accurate, but I'm still cautious about the results.

The doctor said that it's not likely that Alexa would outgrow the peanut allergy, but there's about a 20% chance that she could. She plans to retest her in about a year and see. It would be awesome if she outgrew the allergy, but I'm not going to get my hopes up....