Food Allergy Incidents Away From Home

Filed in archive Food Allergies , Living with Allergies on December 5, 2006

One would think that after four years of dealing with my son's food allergies, he'd be incident-free, eh?

Well, yesterday, the kindergarten called me to pick him up because he threw up. They didn't say anything else, except that he doesn't seem to be feeling well. Since I didn't sense any real emergency, I got there in about 15 minutes. When I got there, the caretaker didn't volunteer any information at first, but after a few minutes admitted that he had a bite of a bread roll which apparently had nuts in it.

I almost blew off. She said they gave him his Fenistil drops, as we instructed in such cases, and he stopped complaining of itchiness on his tongue. After a few minutes, he continued playing and everything was as usual... until another half an hour. His body probably needed to get the offending food items out of his system, and so he threw up.

On one hand, I recognize that his caretakers do their best to accommodate his food allergies. On the other hand, I see that they could exert a bit more effort and treat such food incidents more seriously. Luckily, his food sensitivities are not so severe, otherwise, such a situation could have led to an anaphylaxis in an individual with stronger sensitivities.

Oh well. Lesson of the day: Never be complacent. When it comes to food allergies, you can never be too careful.

How do you deal with the people who take care of your children? How strict are they in following your instructions? Are the staff in your childcare prepared to deal with food allergy incidents?