An Invisible Threat: A Food Allergy Could Have Killed Our Son

Severe excema was the reason my twins were taken to the doctor for complete blood allergy testing. My daughter was the one who was suffering from the skin condition but we thought we would get her brother tested while we were there. Better to be safe than sorry the old adage says. Little did we know, that day would change our life.

Excema can be caused by an allergy. This allergy can be to something environmental or something ingested. When our pediatrician sent us for allergy testing we prayed to find the cause of our little girls terrible itchy skin. What we ended up finding was a peanut allergy in our son that was immeasurable by blood tests. A test result that would not only change our lives but our son's life as well, forever.

All we found out was the results for our sons testing was over a level 6, the highest level for blood allergy testing. Our daughter was only allergic to cats, which we had never owned. We found no cause for her skin condition but our son's results were more than we had bargained for.

The first moments home after reading the results with a prescription for an Epi-Pen were the scariest of our lives. We took our son into a separate room where there was no food and we cleaned out the cupboards. Every label it seemed contained peanut ingredients or was processed in a plant that handled peanuts. After an hour of reading labels and two trashbags later we moved on to our other children's rooms and cleared out any snacks they had. The refrigerator and freezer were next. We learned a lot that day.

The older girls came home from school and we told them what was going on. We taught them how to read nutrition labels and how to look for allergy warnings. Our research was thorough and precise. Everything was under control. Then we made a trip to the grocery store.