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@bhbee: not peanuts but dairy - DS had a reaction (hives) after eating yogurt at 6 months. The ped has us stop all dairy and then at age 1 he went to Children's Hospital and they did a food challenge - he passed =)

My LO had a reaction when exposed to peanuts I believe in June or early July. It was pretty much exactly like what you experienced.

We called the ped. They were not helpful, besides to agree to a referral to the allergist. They just said avoid and did not offer to prescribe an epi. The first opening for an allergy appointment was late September. I posted here at the time, and a few months wait is apparently totally the norm.

Allergist tested for peanuts, tree nuts, and egg allergies when we finally got in. Peanut was borderline, allergic to egg but that is usually mild and outgrown, tree nut numbers were worse. We were given an epipen then.

Peanut numbers were borderline enough that they wanted to challenge. But you can't have any type of cold, illness, etc, so we ended up cancelling several times and did not get in to challenge until February. He passed the peanut challenge - despite that nasty first reaction (it honestly looked pretty bad), but had worsening eczema and HATES peanut butter with an extreme passion (mixing in other stuff didn't help), which makes me wonder if he is having symptoms he can't tell us about. We are supposed to be giving him a teaspoon a day to ensure his tolerance increases, but his eczema got worse and we'd literally have to pin him down and force feed. I just can't, especially since in addition to the eczema I think there may be symptoms he can't express. So we tabled it and are avoiding it still, hopefully that is not condemning LO to have the allergy come back with more severity

A couple of months after we got the epi for peanuts/TN, I introduced LO to a tiny bit of hummus and he had an anaphylactic reaction. Turns out he has a severe sesame allergy, which is common in people with TN allergies. He will have a skin reaction at any minimal surface contact, so we can't have it in our house. I am so glad he had no interest in baby led weaning and did not start trying many solids until after we had the epi, as we used to eat a lot of sesame.

In your situation, I would call the ped and demand an epi. They absolutely should give it. You should always have two epis nearby (extra in case the first one fails or is not enough). And I would be very careful with BLW. Don't introduce new foods at dinner if that's within a couple of hours of bedtime.

It's fine I think if getting into allergy takes awhile. Short of doing OIT (which is not even available yet in all major cities, and most practices won't do until the kid can talk and tell you symptoms), there's really nothing the allergist can do besides give an epi and tell you to avoid.

It was sort of overwhelming at first - we can't take LO to restaurants because sesame and nuts are in so many foods, all our food basically needs to be cooked from scratch. But it's not so bad now that we've gotten used to it. And the good news is that if something goes wrong or there are additional allergens, the epi pen really is super effective. Also, the peanut drug will be approved for 4-18 soon, and there are clinical trials ongoing for 1-3 yos. Unfortunately it will take longer to roll it out to more allergens, but it is super promising, so not necessarily the same lifetime sentence of food avoidance that it used to be...

@periwinklebee: have you tried bamba? taste of PB but totally different texture? I just ask because I feel it's a really easy, non-messy way to get the exposure in. DH is allergic to all nuts (plus a bunch of other things) and the kids don't like PB but they love Bamba. We started with really, really small servings.

@periwinklebee: ugh yes that could be an issue. My sympathies, I know it's so hard to work around.

@bhbee: we don't have peanut allergies but have allergies to certain medication. We were also told that each exposure results in a more severe reaction. I would want to get started on the process asap.

@Corduroy: That would be awesome!! I remember the FDA doing the comments because I participated in that!! I've actually come across quite a few companies that do already label for sesame, which is AWESOME.