Egg allergy, Happy New Year to us!

[starburst604]

I gave DD egg for the second time today, and it didn't go well! After about 15 minutes she threw up a small amount and got extremely fussy. Five minutes later, explosive puking ensued and a rash spread over her face and body. Things got a little scary when we were trying to give her Benadryl but she was still puking, and for a moment she slumped and seemed limp. I laid her down and got the rest of the Benadryl in her, and she snapped out of it and began to coo and smile at me. Called the pedi and they told me to bring her there rather than the ER since her breathing was ok, and she itched like crazy until the Benadryl kicked in and knocked her out.

They checked her out and gave us the number of an allergist to call on Monday, and prescribed an epipen. Went to pick it up and it would be $600!! I declined it and am going to look for a coupon at work, pretty sure we have some.

This was the scariest moment in parenting so far. I have to say I followed the rules about introducing new foods slowly for the most part, but I never seriously considered that she would be allergic to anything. There are no allergies in our family history at all. FX this is the only allergy, and that she outgrows it. Also a nod to my H for keeping it together while she was puking all over him. He's weak-stomached but he said in that moment he was too nervous to even realize it was gross, if that makes sense.

[VillainV]

Wow, so scary!

Does your insurance cover the epi pen, or is the $600 your share after insurance? Can you call Monday and talk to someone for clarification? I mean, that seems medically necessary to me...

[noodleoo]

Oh no!! That sounds so scary! We've been doing solids and I'm not even sure we have Benedryl. I will be getting some tomorrow. In glad your DD is doing ok.

[starburst604]

@villianv they said that was after insurance. I'm going to check Monday but it could be due to our deductible. She's on H's plan not mine so I'm not as familiar with it. We haven't used it much for her yet outside of well visits.

[VillainV]

Jan 1, 2016 17:02:45 GMT -5 starburst604 said:

@villianv they said that was after insurance. I'm going to check Monday but it could be due to our deductible. She's on H's plan not mine so I'm not as familiar with it. We haven't used it much for her yet outside of well visits.

Ouch. Hopefully you can get more info and they will pay for more of it. $600 would suck.

It sounds like you both kept a really level head through the whole ordeal. I'm impressed at how well you handled everything.

[starburst604]

Jan 1, 2016 17:00:17 GMT -5 noodleoo said:

Oh no!! That sounds so scary! We've been doing solids and I'm not even sure we have Benedryl. I will be getting some tomorrow. In glad your DD is doing ok.

Yes it's good to have, and we only got it after the first time we tried egg and she puked it all up. I just thought she didn't really like eggs but figured we should have it on hand just in case. I honestly would have panicked today if we didn't.

[magpie]

I'm glad everything's okay. I don't know if this is the coupon you are looking for, but our allergist gave us these:

www.epipen.com/copay-offer/

and we had paid $0 for a set of 3 epipens.

[litasail]

Hugs to you. My DS has a severe egg allergy, so if you need someone to talk to please let me know.

He also threw up eggs the first time he had them and had an anaphalactic response the second.

On the Epi pens, it's well known that the pharma company that makes them price gouges (http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/10/21/soaring-epipen-prices-raise-questions-about-pharmaceutical-industry/). The allergist should have coupons, for sure.

[starburst]

So glad she's ok! That must have been scary.

[Deleted]

Oh no! Glad she's doing alright now.

I worry about allergies too. Eggs, milk, fruits all seem okay but we haven't done nuts or shellfish yet. My mom has a shellfish allergy, so I'm a little extra worried about that.

[starburst604]

litasail how old is your DS? Is that his only allergy? The anaphylactic reaction must have been terrifying. I am so thankful it wasn't that. Epipen gouges, and since the other auto injector on the market had a huge recall there aren't other options. My H pays normal copays for his prescriptions on the plan regardless of deductible so I don't know why this would be different. Maybe it needs a prior auth? I work for doctors that treat environmental allergies so I'm pretty sure we have Epipen coupons at the office, if not I'll get it from that link, thanks magpie!

[starburst604]

Jan 1, 2016 17:35:00 GMT -5 @kcpokergal said:

Oh no! Glad she's doing alright now.

I worry about allergies too. Eggs, milk, fruits all seem okay but we haven't done nuts or shellfish yet. My mom has a shellfish allergy, so I'm a little extra worried about that.

I guess the silver lining is now that she's getting tested I'll know ahead of time if there's anything else rather than go through this again, or worse.

[starburst604]

Jan 1, 2016 17:04:27 GMT -5 VillainV said:

Jan 1, 2016 17:02:45 GMT -5 starburst604 said:

@villianv they said that was after insurance. I'm going to check Monday but it could be due to our deductible. She's on H's plan not mine so I'm not as familiar with it. We haven't used it much for her yet outside of well visits.

Ouch. Hopefully you can get more info and they will pay for more of it. $600 would suck.

It sounds like you both kept a really level head through the whole ordeal. I'm impressed at how well you handled everything.

My poor H was sleeping when the bad puking started. I started yelling for him and he wasn't hearing me so I raised it to a scream and he came running, told him to run downstairs for the Benadryl then handed her to him while I looked up the dose and got it ready. He was just standing there in his underwear getting puked on lol. We can laugh now but I knocked over the bottle of benadryl in my nervousness and mixed that in with the puke on the bathroom floor. It was quite the scene.

[litasail]

Jan 1, 2016 17:40:02 GMT -5 starburst604 said:

litasail how old is your DS? Is that his only allergy? The anaphylactic reaction must have been terrifying. I am so thankful it wasn't that. 

He'll be three in March. The anaphylactic reaction was when he was 9 months, on Christmas Eve, at my SIL's house who didn't have any Benadryl on hand. It was scary and we've had some other incidents since then, but haven't had to use the Epi pen yet, thankfully.

You may already know this given your job - given that your DD is still so little, they'll probably do a blood test to get a sense of the severity of her egg allergy and test for any other common ones. They can also now test (through that same blood test) for the two most common egg proteins that people are allergic to and determine if he's allergic to one or both. Most people are just allergic to one, which means that they can tolerate baked egg, so fingers crossed that's the case for you guys. For those people, continued exposure to baked egg helps them get over the other allergy faster.

My DS is off-the-charts allergic to both, and unlikely to outgrow the allergy for a long, long time, per the allergist. But we've found that, for the most part, it's pretty easy to avoid egg and there are plenty of awesome recipes that don't include it. There's also a great egg substitute that you can use in baked goods - www.ener-g.com/egg-replacer.html. And of course, vegan stuff is fine (he had a vegan first birthday cake).

[spartyfan]

How scary! I am glad everything turned out okay. Hopefully you can get the epi pen cheaper, $600 is pretty steep!

[starburst604]

litasail thank you for that info! I didn't know that about the testing, I'm familiar with environmental allergy but not food since we don't treat that. Your experience sounds so scary.

I'm watching her tear around her playroom right now, like nothing happened. Amazing how resilient kids are.

[nmosrob]

Scary!! I was thinking about giving dd eggs soon, I didn't even think about having benadryl on hand. I need to get some!

I'm glad your dd is ok!

(love that picture, she is so adorable!)

[vtdiamond]

Oh no how scary! DS has a mild egg allergy so luckily tolerates baked eggs. There is a coupon on Epi Pens website as someone else posted and that will bring down the cost.

I think you're in MA right? We had a great experience with the allergist at Childrens. It would have taken twice as long to get in with the allergist at Lahey.

[Deleted]

Glad your DD is ok! That's so scary. I has a tough time with P doing the high allergens I was a stressed out mess.

[indifferentstars]

I'm so glad you had Benadryl and that that was enough to stop her reaction. How scary!

Definitely get the epi coupons if you can. We have a high deductible and still paid close to $400 for our last set even with the coupon Be sure to check the expiration date when you pick them up as it's a common complaint that pharmacies will try to give patients epis with a short expiration if you're not paying attention. I just ask the pharmacy tech to tell me the dates on their stock when I submit the refill.

Lastly, this website was invaluable to me when my son was newly diagnosed at 10 months (milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts). There's a link on the right hand side for "newly diagnosed" that's a good starting place (obviously ). Beyond that, they have forums and recipes and tons of other resources.

www.kidswithfoodallergies.org/

[anna7602]

So scary! I'm glad your LO is okay now and I hope you can get the epi pen for much less than $600.

[starburst604]

Jan 1, 2016 19:35:40 GMT -5 vtdiamond said:

Oh no how scary! DS has a mild egg allergy so luckily tolerates baked eggs. There is a coupon on Epi Pens website as someone else posted and that will bring down the cost.

I think you're in MA right? We had a great experience with the allergist at Childrens. It would have taken twice as long to get in with the allergist at Lahey.

I am in MA. The pedi we go to is in a center that has all types of specialists, they offered to send me to Children's or their pedi allergist. I figured for ease of location and getting an appointment quickly I would try theirs. If it turns out that her allergies are very involved I'd likely switch her to someone at Children's.

I'm having some wine now and just went up to check on her like I always do when she's sleeping, and it really hit me and the tears flowed. Today could have been much, much worse. My god, I can't even think about it. I'm mad at myself for being so breezy like oh no my kid won't have allergies. Everything about her health has been so uncomplicated so far, I guess I thought she would just continue that way.

[Deleted]

I have been allergic to eggs since birth--tag me if you ever are looking for tips, tricks, egg substitutes, egg-free recipes, etc. I am so sorry this happened to you and I know it can feel so overwhelming and frightening to have a child with a food allergy--I struggled a lot with DD2's MSPI even coming from a food allergy background myself. But egg allergy is totally manageable and you are already handling it beautifully.

[starburst604]

Jan 1, 2016 21:37:05 GMT -5 @rainbowdash said:

Oh geez, that's serious reaction! I'm glad you went in, but please print that coupon and get that epi-pen ASAP. Also, something I learned a while back is that they always need to be kept in a set of two. Each prescription is a two pen set and they need to remain a pair in case of a misfire or a rebound reaction. My insurance company refused to give me two full sets as written in the prescription so the pedi rewrote it as one prescription and one refill. Then, the pharmacy suggested I get the one set and turn around and order the refill immediately, so I did. We have one set at home and one set at daycare.

One of my favorite reaources is this site: www.foodallergy.org/ and they also have a FB page. Good luck mama, I know how terrifying this stuff can be.

Yes the doctor told me today to keep it as a set of two, and she did write it for two sets so we have one set for daycare. I just did some research on our policy and it does look like it's due to our high deductible, and it being the first of the year. Had this happened a day sooner it would have been covered!! I'm going to see tomorrow how much help the coupon actually gives, unless it's a significant amount I'm going to just pay the deductible cost from our HSA. I would rather we get credit toward our deductible if the coupon is only going to save $100 or something.