Allergy Chronicles: Epi-pen and Inhaler knowledge

Seeing as Matthew's allergies are pretty severe... he was prescribed an epi-pen and an inhaler, because apparently if your child has food allergies, they are prone to eczema, (which he did have when he was a baby) and asthma.

I'm familiar with Epi-pen's already.. I worked in a school where there were a lot of children with severe peanut allergies, so I had to be trained to use one.

They have epi-pen's for children, "Junior" epi-pen's and epi-pen's for adults.

An Epi-pen is an Epinephrine pen-- it's in a shape of a pen that you inject into your thigh to give you a dose of Adrenaline in case you have gone into anaphylactic shock; and this is when you have ingested something that you are allergic to.. and you have responded quite badly, either your airways have closed or your tongue has swollen up so much where you can't breathe.. so that shot of Epinephrine or adrenaline will be enough to get you to a hospital to be treated-- it is not a cure, it will not stop the allergic reaction-- it's like when you take paracetamol for a headache or a pain.

Inhalers.

We are aware that there is a brown inhaler called a 'Preventer' and a blue inhaler, called a 'Reliever' which is what you use when you have an asthma attack, or symptoms of an attack are showing up (wheezing, coughing etc)

The preventer is meant to be used daily, once a day and it is a steroid medicine that aids the airways in your lungs. The blue inhaler you can use and it should ease the symptoms straight away.

I had to start using inhalers when Matthew had a cold and his breathing became a problem. When I went to the hospital and they found out he had food allergies-- they were like it is likely he could develop asthma. But glory to God.. since the last time which was a couple of months now, his breathing has improved-- his breathing seems to go awry when he has a cold.. he hasn't had a cold for awhile so I'm still keeping my eyes peeled but he used to have a wheeze and that has stopped completely.

I never knew there was so much to learn when it came to food allergies!