My Allergy Journey

Our journey started when Jessica was just a baby. She had an ear infection so the Doctor prescribed antibiotics. Little did we know our life would then change forever. Jessica would wake around 2am every night and not settle after a feed. It seemed like she was in agony with stomach cramps. I went back to the doctors and the Doctor said they couldn’t see anything wrong with Jessica. As I was breastfeeding, I kept cutting out different foods, as I wondered if something I was eating was causing her pain during the night. Eventually we worked out, that once I cut all foods containing milk out of my diet, Jessica was a happy baby. She still woke during the night, but settled as soon as she had had a night feed and went to sleep easily. Over the years, we avoided milk in her diet and kept regularly attempting the milk ladder. At four years old, we seemed to be working our way up the ladder but after drinking a small amount of milk, she developed an uncontrollable cough that seem to last forever but was about ten minutes. We were driving in the car at the time in our local village, but quickly came back home for Jessica to take her blue salbutamol inhaler. Luckily that helped and the cough stopped. However that was when we realised the extent of Jessica’s allergy. Shortly afterwards, we saw a consultant at the local hospital where she was given an allergy plan and prescribed epipens and antihistamine.

Georgia on the other hand has only recently been diagnosed with allergies and unlike Jessica had no obvious symptoms until this year. Over the years, it has always been a struggle to get Georgia to eat eggs but no problem with baked egg in cakes. We thought she might just be a picky eater. However as Georgia got older and was able to communicate better, she started to complain of her tongue hurting after eating Yorkshire puddings and pancakes. As we were so aware that Georgia could have allergies, I tried to introduce foods containing egg into Georgia’s diet. As she had a sweet tooth, I thought merangue might be a good one to try. She had the tiniest amount of merangue and straightaway said her tongue was hurting and minutes later she was sick. We got her tested for allergies and when the results came back, said she’s allergic to raw and lightly cooked eggs. Also tested positive for brazil and cashew nuts. I was totally surprised by the nut allergy as she had always had a nut spread which she loved and didn’t seem to have any problems with.