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<p>Could this be because they’re dead before they would ever get to your ER?</p>
<p>Some people’s allergic reactions to peanuts are overwhelming and fast – more so, I believe, than for other allergens.</p>
<p>As a clarification, peanuts are not nuts, they are a legume or bean. People allergic to nuts don’t neccessarily have a peanut allergy. People allergic to peanuts don’t necessarily have a nut allergy.</p>
<p>Here’s a new theory: The new head chef, who truly is a genius and will keep the food plan within budget for these hordes of students while enticing them with new taste sensations, happens to be utterly, and horribly peanut allergic.</p>
<p>What would y’all think in that case?</p>
<p>Here’s some info from NIAID: [Food</a> Allergy Quick Facts](<a href=“The page you’re looking for isn’t available | NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases”>The page you’re looking for isn’t available | NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)</p>
<p>My DS has severe peanut allergy. In kindergarten, yes, peanut products banned. In college, no. He has learned to manage being in public, in school, in restaurants and to be very cautious. Only request made was no peanut products in his room and roommate willing to agree to that.<br>
He does generally fly Southwest when possible which is very helpful to peanut allergic people, allows them to board first to clean off seat from any peanut residue and does not serve peanuts on those flights. Amazing to hear people’s complaints when they get pretzels instead. Very scary to live with this allergy.</p>
<p>I agree if there is more than one dining hall there is no harm to students to make one completely peanut free. However, the OP said there was only one dining hall on campus. Making that peanut free seems like an overreaction. The school should have worked to come up with another accommoation. </p>
<p>I wonder if the next step would be accommodations in the work place?</p>
<p>milkandsugar, my niece has had trips to the emergency room.</p>
<p>One of the problems with this whole thing is that the world is now full of people who claim to be “allergic” to all kinds of things to which they may be sensitive at most. Vegetarians who say it is “rude” if you point out that being a vegetarian is a choice. (Yes, even for “health” reasons, unless you have a life-threatening allergy to animal proteins.) People who don’t eat this or that. </p>
<p>It gets so that it is difficult for many people to distinguish the real concern from the exaggerated one, especially if you don’t actually know anyone who suffers from it.</p>
<p>There are workplaces where people are asked not to wear perfumes. I don’t see it as a big deal. I pretty much gave up wearing perfumes years ago because the person who sat next to me in choir reacts to scents the way other people react to seasonal allergies.</p>
<p>My older son has life-threatening food allergies. When he was younger, he was allergic to so many foods that it was hard to find things he could eat. He gradually outgrew most of his food allergies. The allergist believes that this is because I was extremely careful to avoid any exposure. He also outgrew his peanut allergy; this is very rare, but it can happen. He is one of the few documented cases. Unfortunately, he is still very allergic to tree nuts. As someone pointed out, peanuts are a legume and in a different category. </p>
<p>There are different schools of thought on nut-free environments. One problem with them is that they can give a false sense of security. My son, at this point, does not seem to be so allergic that touching a nut would make him react. But I remember when he was a baby, four months old. The first bite of baby cereal mixed with cow’s milk- we missed his mouth and it touched his cheek - hives all over. Thank God he didn’t eat it.</p>
<p>milkandsugar, I find your post rather lacking in compassion and in knowledge for an ER nurse. Let me tell you what happened a few years ago when my son ingested a miniscule amount of walnuts. I served butternut squash ravioli one evening when my son was not home. The next night, I put a few leftover ravioli on the table, and my son took one. He immediately reacted, I gave him the Epi-pen, we were in the ER all night, and he missed two days of school. This is the only time I ever messed up. It didn’t occur to me that there would be nuts in the filling, it was very smooth. Later, I checked the label and they did contain walnuts. He must have gotten no more than a bit of walnut dust. Life-threatening allergies are no joke, whether or not you’ve observed them.</p>
<p>My son also had a horrible reaction during a food challenge, in a major NYC hospital, under the direct supervision of the leading pediatric allergist in the world, with doctors all over the place. They had a very hard time controlling it. It is terrifying when you can see that the doctors trying to save your child are also terrified.</p>
<p>I was very happy to hear on a Delta flight recently that peanuts would not be served because an allergic person was on board. No one needs to eat peanuts on a plane. I feel differently about people who would like to eat peanut butter in a college food hall. After all, that is their home. It seems that there should be a way to accommodate everyone. Having one peanut-free dining hall out of several would seem to make sense.</p>
<p>It might be that for extremely allergic people, the accommodation might be an apartment with a kitchen rather than a dining hall meal contract. But that’s costly, and isn’t ideal for the student, either.</p>
<p>I think milkandsugar’s experience in her ER is probably not typical. Peanut allergies are just as common as seafood allergies, and various reports suggest that they account for a significant number of ER visits each year.</p>
<p>I don’t have any family members with life-threatening allergies, but I do remember having to come home from college my freshman year (over 30 years ago) for the funeral of a friend who had a severe peanut allergy. He was a high school student who was at a football game and ate a candy bar that didn’t have peanuts listed on the list of ingredients, but it apparently had enough peanut contamination (from the manufacturing facility?) that it caused him to go into anaphylactic shock and he died. It was unbelievable that his passing was so sudden and from something so seemingly “benign” as a peanut. </p>
<p>So I do take peanut allergies very seriously, and even though peanut bans are sometimes inconvenient for those of us without food allergies, I would happily give up peanuts (which I love!) in a dining hall or classroom or dorm room if it would decrease the chances of causing someone to have a life-threatening allergic reaction.</p>
<p>How timely! I was on a United flight recently. They announced that a passenger was severely allergic to peanuts and asked that everyone avoid opening or consuming any food items containing peanuts. I have flown numerous times and this was the first I had ever heard this request.</p>
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<p>Because in post #22, you asked whether this was “Swat or Northwestern.” I took that as an assumption that you were asking me which of my kids’ schools this was, and I was clarifying that I was referring to Wellesley, because my kids go to Wellesley and Northwestern. I hadn’t seen either Swat or Northwestern referenced in the thread to this point (though I may have missed a few posts) so I was assuming you were directing that comment at me. Sorry if I misinterpreted, but then who was your comment addressed to and in what context?</p>
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NYMomof2
sorry you feel this way. I am only relating my personal experience as a seasoned ER nurse. I have a sister who died from an anaphylactic allergic reaction, so I am fully compassionate and take allergic reactions very seriously. My own daughter has allergies.</p>
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the ER staff are pretty tight with the EMS services in our community and we pretty much know what goes on in our servicing communities.</p>
<p>Oh!! Never mind, CTTC! You were asking the OP about Swat versus Northwestern - she must have kids at both schools! </p>
<p>(embarrassed, slinking away, using best Emily Litella voice)</p>
<p>Hayden, there is a theory that being exposed to genetically modified soy in early years has caused peanut allergies: [Soy?s</a> Role in Peanut Allergy | AllergyKids](<a href=“http://www.allergykids.com/defining-food-allergies/soys-role-in-peanut-allergy/]Soy?s”>http://www.allergykids.com/defining-food-allergies/soys-role-in-peanut-allergy/)</p>
<p>Question- if you are on a plane and they announce that someone has a severe allergy to peanuts, can I eat my m & m’s (plain) on the plane? I just bought plain and pretzel m & m’s for an upcoming flight.</p>
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In my opinion, for what it’s worth, that would be OK–I believe they have a “same equipment” warning, but not an ingredient warning. A highly allergic person probably shouldn’t eat them, but the risk of exposure from casual contact would be remote.</p>
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<p>Well in fact at some institutions they do or at least they had to pay for the dining hall even if they couldn’t eat it.</p>
<p>See the agreement between the Department of Justice and Lesley University: [Questions</a> and Answers about the Lesley University Agreement and potential implications for individuals with Food Allergies](<a href=“http://www.ada.gov/q&a_lesley_university.htm]Questions”>Redirecting…)</p>
<p>I agree that peanut allergies can be very severe but there are several food allergies that are similar.</p>
<p>I’m extremely allergic to mushrooms, I can’t have it in foods, in any kind of product, and can’t have any cross contamination… What about allergies like that? I carry an epi pen; but who knows?</p>
<p>It seems a bit like helicopter parenting, even though I understand how severe the allergy is, whose to say they stop there and don’t ban it from other areas of campus</p>
<p>(Well and coconuts but all that really limits is my ability to have a pi</p>
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The difference is that there are many, many more people with peanut allergies–something like 6 out of every 1000 college students will have a nut allergy, which means that most colleges will have quite a few. This doesn’t diminish your problem, but it makes it harder for the school to justify banning all mushrooms if your allergy is significantly rarer. I still think they should accommodate you, but it might have to be something other than a ban in the dining hall–as I noted before, maybe you need an apartment where you can prepare your own food.</p>