Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 249 posts

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#191

Post by xanderlewis »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #106
cwoolfe wrote: post #105

Nuts are a very good and healthy natural snack; it's a shame they are banned by most daycares and schools now. It would be great if this became so common they could be allowed again. Without nuts...what do we have instead? Chips. granola-bars. These are highly processed foods that have other issues. Raisins or apples maybe? but they are mostly sugar. None of these options have healthy fat & protein like nuts do. What…

Yep, the banning of normal foods from these spaces is a detriment to everyone else. I feel it is a bit unfair, in that everyone else has to “subsidize” the few rare people with allergies. Shouldn’t the burden be on them to avoid public spaces if they’re that sensitive?

The Tyranny of the Minority.

One set being small is all it takes for the intersection to be small.

…although I do have some sympathy for those with such severe allergies. ‘The burden be[ing] on them’ does seem a bit harsh.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#192

Post by OJFord »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #76
Obscurity4340 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this effective and available for milder chronic hayfever and runny,partially blocked nose, generally speaking?

I've heard that consuming honey from your local variety of bees can help - but the evidence base isn't great [1] [1] https://www.honeyshoney.co.uk/blogs/news/local-honey-and-hay...

I think this myth might stem from people not getting hayfever, moving away from where they grew up, and then suddenly getting hayfever and attributing it to where they moved to. But the truth is it just can be (frequently is I believe) adult onset (20s very typical I believe).

At least, that was my experience, I blamed Cambridge, then moved back or even when I visited before that had it just as bad in the town I grew up in. (Cripplingly painful eyes, sometimes migraines. Nose generally fine, but steroidal nasal spray is the best I've found off prescription for my eyes. Eye drops only really seem to help by way of lubrication for me (even though they are active), and pills (best I've tried is fexofenadine) don't give that instant relief.)

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#193

Post by olau »

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #74
eskibars wrote: post #9

Our son is very allergic to peanuts and less so to cashew, and sesame. We went through oral immunotherapy and it's been absolutely life changing. He used to need an epi pen in case of chance encounter, but now he eats 2 whole peanut m&ms every day to keep his dosage up. It's been difficult finding an allergist in Germany that's willing to accept this and move forward Obviously everyone's mileage will vary, but I'm ha…

Is this effective and available for milder chronic hayfever and runny,partially blocked nose, generally speaking?

My hayfever is mild. Since some years ago, I chew some grass ends, mostly at the beginning of the season. I do seem to get much reduced symptoms compared to what I used to get. But of course I can't be sure it's causal. I have completely stopped taking antihistamines.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#194

Post by nathancahill »

eskibars wrote: post #45
marcod wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for being nosy, but did you do oral immunotherapy with or without professional support?

With. First they did a blood test (instead of a scratch test) to identify possible allergy levels. Then the allergist had us come into the office to take e.g. a few micrograms of peanut powder and watch him for reactions. Then we maintained the dose at home every day for the next couple weeks, taking zyrtec with it to avoid hives, etc. Then we'd go back in, try doubling the dose as a challenge. If he had a bad reacti…

Our son is allergic to nearly everything (peanuts, nuts, dairy, eggs, sesame, wheat) and we haven't found an allergist willing to work with us. Do you know if there's an age factor for immunotherapy effectiveness? He's 2 1/2 yo.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#196

Post by jack_riminton »

ekianjo wrote: post #184
onli wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tend to be critical against immunotherapy in general, if it's not for those allergies where the therapy has a good chance of working and is without risk. Otherwise avoidance of the allergen is preached. We encountered that with a cat hair allergy, treatment was refused.

> avoidance of the allergen whats the point of the allergist then?

The purpose of a system is what it does. If they make money by identifying allergies and then treating those people for those allergies, as opposed to parents giving their children 2 peanuts a week, then their livelihood is under threat.

If kids were left to get dirty and put the occasional thing in their mouth, which kids have been doing since the dawn of time, then there wouldn’t be such an allergy problem

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#197

Post by vjk800 »

My understanding is that exposure therapy is nowadays the recommended way to deal with milder allergies. My daughter was allergic to eggs and the doctors advice was to start to slowly introduce them to her diet. About half a year after starting this, she could eat eggs in food no problem.

I've also personally cured my cat allergy. We adopted a cat that was supposedly of hypoallergic breed ("supposedly" because there's really no science behind it, it's just people reporting less reactions from this breed). I still got a mild allergic reaction to her initially, but after a few months, it stopped. Now, a few years later, we are still happily living with her and it seems that I've ceased being allergic to other cats also.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#198

Post by munchbunny »

eskibars wrote: post #9

Our son is very allergic to peanuts and less so to cashew, and sesame. We went through oral immunotherapy and it's been absolutely life changing. He used to need an epi pen in case of chance encounter, but now he eats 2 whole peanut m&ms every day to keep his dosage up. It's been difficult finding an allergist in Germany that's willing to accept this and move forward Obviously everyone's mileage will vary, but I'm ha…

We did this for our son (peanuts and cashews) and it was also life changing. He’s on a daily maintenance dose for life, but we no longer fear the possibility of either allergen being near him in public places or cross contamination in food. He still has to carry his epipen, but now the prognosis for “oops he ate something with peanut in it” is no reaction at all until he’s several peanuts in. He’s not cured and can still eat his way to anaphylaxis with a bag of peanuts, but he can take a few bites out of a PB&J sandwich and nothing will happen.

One detail in particular makes a huge difference: oral immunotherapy seems to be significantly more effective in babies (starting before age 2) with significantly better outcomes. Adults and young children have a much higher incidence of side effects (most common one is a constantly upset stomach) that makes avoidance potentially still better for overall quality of life, but our allergist told us that among their In our case the kid started eating peanuts basically as soon as they started eating solid foods, so the allergy happened despite early exposure. Actually we caught the allergy early enough to start OIT early because of early exposure.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#199

Post by munchbunny »

shmichael wrote: post #173
eskibars wrote: post #9

Our son is very allergic to peanuts and less so to cashew, and sesame. We went through oral immunotherapy and it's been absolutely life changing. He used to need an epi pen in case of chance encounter, but now he eats 2 whole peanut m&ms every day to keep his dosage up. It's been difficult finding an allergist in Germany that's willing to accept this and move forward Obviously everyone's mileage will vary, but I'm ha…

In Israel this is done naturally by feeding children Bamba, a puffed peanut snack, at a very early age. Research shows significantly decreased levels of peanut allergy. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/02/23/388450621/fe...

People mention this quite often to me because my toddler is on oral immunotherapy for peanuts, and there’s a small but important distinction here. It’s extra important when relatives start to think it’s okay to be casually leaving peanut products lying around within the toddler’s reach. (It’s not)

The general consensus among allergists is that early exposure reduces the chances of developing the allergy in the first place, but people on oral immunotherapy are still allergic, they just have a high tolerance and can still have anaphylactic reactions. Some will outgrow the allergy, but for peanuts most don’t and the data doesn’t yet exist for whether peanut oral immunotherapy increases the likelihood of outgrowing the allergy.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#200

Post by hilbert42 »

charrondev wrote: post #171
hilbert42 wrote: post #168

When I was a kid in Australia decades ago we'd never heard of peanut allergies and swapping peanut butter sandwiches at school was the norm. No doubt there were allergies back then but what on earth has made them so much more common these days? Same with asthma. Something has gone terribly wrong.

I’d be curious to see statistics on this as well. If I were to hypothesize it would be a combination of 3 factors: - Nut Allergies in particular seem to be reduced with early exposure [0]. Maybe dietary trends have changed in a way that causes less early exposure? - Child mortality rate used to be much higher. Children with allergies used to be part of this mortality rate. This combined with parents with mild allergi…

"Children with allergies used to be part of this mortality rate."

Perhaps so, but I had a mother who was particularly fussy that we kids had good fresh food—I reckon she was a bit obsessed with it, yummy things like potato chips, sweets, etc. were discouraged and not a part of our normal diet—and at no time was anything ever mentioned about nuts, peanut butter, etc. being bad or 'suspect'.

In fact, I was encouraged to eat nuts instead of sweets as they were considered wholesome whereas sweets were not. We always had peanut butter at home (mother encouraged it over jam).

When we did have sweets it was often peanut brittle (and peanut toffee) which I and most kids loved.

Moreover, my mother always thought of herself as up to date, every week she read women's magazines such as the Women's Weekly, if nut allergies were a big deal back then she would have heard of it. But there was nothing said.

Likewise, I'd love to know the statistics. What I do know is that these days something has changed for the worse. If peanut allergies had been so prevalent when I was a kid then there'd have been no way that it could have been covered up so completely that no one would have been aware of it.

Incidentally, it's not as if allergies were unknown back then, we occasionally heard of some unfortunate people who were allergic to shellfish, or occasionally egg, or being near cats or horses—but never peanuts or other nuts.

Post reply on HN