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Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

bbc.com

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Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#61

Post by bb123 »

ggm wrote: post #26

Treatment for adults would be nice, but I take solace from the future. At least more kids won't need to grow up with an extreme concern. Meantime grown-ups keep carrying the epipen.

It is not well known but this also works for adults too. I’m 28 and recently completed oral immunotherapy therapy for my extremely severe peanut allergy. I used to go anaphylactic from single milligram exposure and now I’m eating multiple peanuts a day. As an adult you have to go slower and be more careful but absolutely can be done and is life changing.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#62

Post by ascorbic »

praseodym wrote: post #2

In The Netherlands it is recommended to introduce peanut and egg to babies between 4 and 6 months, to reduce the chances of food allergy. More information (in Dutch): https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/vraag-en-antwoord/...

My daughter took part in a large study that led to similar guidance being introduced in the UK. The was randomised into the early introduction group, which meant that she had to eat peanut, egg, cow's milk, fish, wheat and sesame on a regular schedule when she was a baby. It was interesting - though lots of work, and when she was old enough to understand why she was going up to London for the follow-up tests, she was very proud of her role as "scientist". It was very satisfying when the results were published many years later, proving the hypothesis.

https://www.food.gov.uk/research/food-allergy-and-intoleranc...

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#63

Post by ascorbic »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39
praseodym wrote: post #2

In The Netherlands it is recommended to introduce peanut and egg to babies between 4 and 6 months, to reduce the chances of food allergy. More information (in Dutch): https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/vraag-en-antwoord/...

> introduce peanut and egg to babies between 4 and 6 months What goes wrong if they're exposed before that? If the mother eats peanuts and eggs while breast feeding, does that confer desensitisation?

No, it's the opposite. The advice we were given was that it was very important that their first encounter with the allergens was to eat them, and not to allow skin contact or anything before that. This meant that with my youngest we had no peanuts in the house until she was old enough to eat solid food, and peanut butter was the first food she ate. It's still her favourite food!

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#64

Post by britishfetish »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39
praseodym wrote: post #2

In The Netherlands it is recommended to introduce peanut and egg to babies between 4 and 6 months, to reduce the chances of food allergy. More information (in Dutch): https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/vraag-en-antwoord/...

> introduce peanut and egg to babies between 4 and 6 months What goes wrong if they're exposed before that? If the mother eats peanuts and eggs while breast feeding, does that confer desensitisation?

I'm assuming you're not a parent, but it's a valid question! No food before 4 months, babies can and should subsist on breastmilk or formula before that.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#65

Post by lupusreal »

darth_avocado wrote: post #3

I always think about the low incidence of peanut allergies in developing countries and wonder if the mother's diet during pregnancy has an effect on allergies in children? Has this been researched? Because instead of introducing peanuts and eggs to babies, introducing it to mothers is almost a no brainer.

I have a suspicious that apparent elevated rates of allergies are caused by overzealous preemptive testing. The tests are very sensitive and trigger for people that have only slight allergies which, in the past or in developing countries, could have been simply unknown and naturally diminished with subsequent exposure.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#66

Post by lupusreal »

grecy wrote: post #34

When I worked at a wilderness summer camp I had a kid in my group that was deathly allergic to peanuts, so weeks before we had to rid the camp of them. He was about 13, and said when he was little they did that scratch allergy test on his arm and he was in a coma for six months. He carried and Epipen around but told me not to stress. If someone ate a snickers then touched a door knob, and he touched it days later he…

Sounds like obvious bullshit. His story I mean, not yours. If his allergy were as bad as he claimed he would be a bubble boy or dead. It's not as if all of society around him could be cleansed of peanut residue as the camp supposedly was. If he went anywhere public without a bubble then by his account he'd be dead.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#67

Post by 2-3-7-43-1807 »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #51
marcod wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I AM NOT A DOCTOR OR OTHER HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL I looked into oral immunotherapy for tree nut allergies. There's a paper from 2022: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/all.15212 They did it in a few stages: 1. First three days: test the child with increasing amounts of cashew protein, until the child has a reaction. Use the amount ingested for that reaction, to determine the single highest tolerated dose (…

[flagged]

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#68

Post by ggm »

bb123 wrote: post #61
ggm wrote: post #26

Treatment for adults would be nice, but I take solace from the future. At least more kids won't need to grow up with an extreme concern. Meantime grown-ups keep carrying the epipen.

It is not well known but this also works for adults too. I’m 28 and recently completed oral immunotherapy therapy for my extremely severe peanut allergy. I used to go anaphylactic from single milligram exposure and now I’m eating multiple peanuts a day. As an adult you have to go slower and be more careful but absolutely can be done and is life changing.

Weblinks would be very interesting. Congratulations for getting to a safer place.

This is the Australian position: https://www.allergy.org.au/hp/papers/ascia-oral-immunotherap...

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#69

Post by [deleted] »

2-3-7-43-1807 wrote: post #67
rahimnathwani wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I AM NOT A DOCTOR OR OTHER HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL I looked into oral immunotherapy for tree nut allergies. There's a paper from 2022: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/all.15212 They did it in a few stages: 1. First three days: test the child with increasing amounts of cashew protein, until the child has a reaction. Use the amount ingested for that reaction, to determine the single highest tolerated dose (…

[flagged]

[deleted]
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