Tag Archives: hives

Allergies and Kids Sports

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Tball player

Organized sports for children, I think my boys have tried most of the ones available in our area except the ones that involve body checking (although they did try basketball).  Now, for food allergic kids on sports teams, the things to avoid seem obvious – shared water bottles, celebratory snacks, but we quickly discovered there are a whole host of surprisingly risky things lurking in the gym bag.

T-ball began in kindergarten. What a hilarious sport!  Kids try to hit a baseball off a high tee and then parents try (often unsuccessfully) to direct their budding Major Leaguer to first base.  Left handed batters often end up running to third and some poor souls make a beeline for the pitcher’s mound.  With about 12 kids out on the field corralled by 24 parents, the game is more of a batting, yelling free-for-all; a perfect way to start a baseball career.  After outfitting G in the supplied polyester uniform and required jockstrap and cup (which, by the way makes them all walk around like bow legged cowboys) he was ready to take to the field and try all the positions.  Now in t-ball the only interesting position is catcher because you get to actually touch the ball by picking it up and placing it back on the tee.  This is quite a skill for these 5 year olds and all of them want a turn at showing off their ball placing skills.  When it was G’s turn he eagerly put on the complicated catcher’s gear (sorry, equipment) and got ready to pick up the ball when it was knocked off by the batter’s body on follow through.  The leg armour was strapped on and the chest protector clipped into place; he donned the helmet and face mask and “click”, “click” went the camera – wow he really looked like a Baseball Player!  Alas, it was a short career for G in the coveted position as catcher.  He probably survived 5 minutes in the face cage.  He was wiggling the cage saying my face is itchy.  Sure enough, when we whipped off the head gear, his face was covered in hives where the mask had touched his skin.

He did play baseball for a few more years, but those beginner years of little league can be quite painful (I mean from a boredom point of view) so I was not sad to see it go.  His Spring sport has become field hockey which suits me just fine as a spectator.  He’ll never be in goal though because of the shared face mask thing.  This also suits me just fine – it’s not pleasant to watch your child have hockey balls drilled at them, even if they are wearing a cup that fits …

Allergy test results

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Allergy testing hives

Ever have an itch you can't scratch...

So, after the allergy testing yesterday, the platter of Quality Street Chocolates for G is out as is the hunk of blue cheese.  If you look at the photo above… those four nice round welts along the bottom are the milk tests.  This wasn’t much of a surprise.  Having spilled milk on G when he was a baby, I know first hand what evil milk had wrought (once again, SO sorry G).  I was actually hoping that egg would be reduced, but see that big amorphous welt in the crook of his arm… that’s the egg white test.  Guess it’s not reduced!

If you’re not familiar with allergy testing, here’s a quick primer.  Pen marks indicate where a small drop of serum containing the allergen is put on the skin.  A tiny scratch is made on the skin where the serum is and then you wait to see what happens.  Sometimes it’s quite spectacular, but what you’d rather see is nothing.  I must say, G displayed incredible self control.  Just looking at his arm made me itchy.  Poor guy was going out of his mind wanting to scratch!

There is actually something positive that came from the testing, I mean the test was negative which was positive….Oh what ever, it was good news. G requested to be tested for pistachio nuts and to his delight it was negative.  Forget the Quality Street and blue cheese, on our way home we stopped for a slushy and a small bag of pistachios (with a Benadryl chaser).

 

Eggs-actly what are you allergic to?

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egg

So we knew about the milk allergy because of the spilt milk episodes, but G. was a bit young yet to have allergy tests.  We were very careful about introducing new foods and we had begun the eye squinting job of label reading in the grocery store.  G. was not quite at the ‘feeding himself’ stage, but he sat in his high chair at the dinner table with us.  It was Sunday night and I had my parents over for dinner.  For this meal dessert is expected and I had made small meringues, the melt in your mouth variety.  I gave one to G. to play with while we finished our own.  I figured it would be safe because if he did put it in his mouth, it would just melt away.  Choking was the only thing I had to worry about with a baby learning to feed himself, right?  There was no dairy in my home-made meringues so no problem.  G. played with the meringue, rolling it around in his hands.  My heart did that shudder skip beat thing when I saw the red welts form on his fingers and G. start to itch.  Luckily it hadn’t yet made it to his mouth.  Egg!?  Allergic to egg?  Yup.  A thorough wash and a check mark in the box for egg allergy.  Heavy sigh.