Hi everyone,
My wife, our two girls (4 and 2) just returned from 8 days in France.
I wanted to share our experience in the hopes that others may learn from it. Our youngest daughter suffers from a moderate peanut allergy, having been diagnosed about a year ago. It has never really been an issue, we steer clear of foods with nuts (or potential traces) and ask our servers in restaurants (we eat out frequently) before we allow her to eat anything.
In preparation for our trip we did a ton of research on myriad of food allergy sites and blogs, bought allergy cards written in French, and packed plenty of medicine. We chose France for her first European trip because I speak the language.
While trying to get the girls to go to sleep on our second night in Paris the 2yo (with the allergy) began coughing and within 30 minutes (in which time we gave her Sudafed) the reaction at escalated to the point she was wheezing and beginning to have trouble breathing. My wife and I had to execute our emergency plan (for the first time ever).
Epi-Pen, Ambulance, Children's Hospital
Fortunately the reaction stopped almost instantaneously once we stuck her with the Epi-Pen. We got her to the hospital and stuck around for additional shots and monitoring until 6 hours after the reaction. Both the guys in the ambulance and the nurses/doctors at the hospital were great, top notch.
None of us were in any shape to travel home early, so with the help of my brother and sister in law we managed to stick around for the remaining 6 days and have an enjoyable trip in the Loire and Normandy.
We only fed her food we prepared that had allergin labels, or came from McDonalds which has a great electronic ordering system complete with allergin info, and watched her like a hawk whenever she was around food. To say it was stressful is an understatement.
Our current guess is that she was exposed to either peanut oil or lupin (a legume related to peanuts) flour in a pizza from a place on the Rue Cler. We had asked about peanuts and peanut oil while ordering. It had been a few hours since we'd eaten, and she did eat an apple from a cart we could have cleaned better, but we suspect it was the pizza as she wasn't that interested and that is unusual. I don't think we'll ever know.
For those with food allergies, please be careful and have a plan.
Peace,
Tom