Another Food Allergy

Most of you already knew what happen last night, via facebook.

For the first time in life, Zahra had to take the nebulizer, takde ribut, takde angin, takde batuk takde demam, but because of food allergy!

Oh my..when am I going to learn about this :(

Zahra had her first food allergy attack when she was 1 year old, and her mummy never learnt, decide to give her another shot of yogurt, thinking she is ok now with yogurt. You know, kids and allergy, they develop. Either doing worse or better and I belive in latter so yeah, we decided to try to give her another yogurt, but different brand. On the other note, I desperately need her to consume something 'calciumy' since she's refusing the milk.

Last incident was with adult yogurt, so MrComot bought this new specially for kids 1 year+ from Yoplait, strawberry flavor.



I tried to give Zahra during lunch, about 2 teaspoon, then we off for family dinner in Muhibbah, no reaction shows only 1 small red dot on her upper lips, so I assumed it's just a tiny reaction, and brush off the sign, and gave Zahra the remaining yogurt (about 2oz I think) during the evening, before her dinner.

About half an hour after that Zahra started showing discomforts, keep on scratching her diaper area and crying. I thought it's a normal diaper rash and just calm her by rubbing her skin softly. But she didn't stop crying and then I saw a few more dots appear on her lip, her eyelids, under her neck and big dots on her private area, and dang! I knew it! Zahra is allergic to that yogurt *sigh*

I quickly put her into diaper-less, pat the itchy area with bedak sejuk gamat but she keep on crying and half an hour after that, her chest is moving faster with deep and heavy wheezing! I keep on patting her back to loosen the phlegm but the wheezing is getting heavier and heavier. It was around 730PM that time, after we did our Maghrib both of us said, that's it, we have to go to the clinic, this is severe allergy.

Our favourite doctor is closed so we had to find any nearby clinic and found one next to Palm Spring - Klinik Idzham and thank God it is 24 hours. On the way to the clinic, Zahra was crying non-stop (I think because she finds it hard to breathe) and refuse to latch. Of course she can't I think. I carry her with upright position and keep on patting her back telling her "Zahra hang on, you are strong baby, hang on ok, hang on, keep on breathing..Zahra strong baby, mummy know you can do it!". OMG such a drama. I was about to cry but I know I can't, else I won't be able to be calm and push her to stay strong. So yeah..I'm quite surprised with myself. I was like cheering my daughter to win a competition in sports-day or something.

The moment we arrived the clinic, the doc check on the wheezing, it was so bad that you didn't need a stethoscope to hear it and quickly prepare the nebulizer.

Zahra on neb. Yeah, don't mention my akar pokok hand :(

Zahra such a good baby, she didn't cry at all for the whole neb session, instead she sit still and sometimes move the face to right and left because she's curious with that thing stuffed to her face. Or maybe she finds it such a relieve to finally can breathe like normal when the phlegm started to clear.

Her breathing back to normal with lighter wheezing after the nebulizer. The phlegm still didn't go away 100% but she's back to her usual self, trying to play with the doctor's blood pressure machine and being cheeky. The doc gave Ventolin for her breathing allergy and Zyrtec for the rashes/dots reaction.


But when we arrived home, the dots was totally gone..and she was okay until bed time, her breathing is back to normal, and using my mummy instinct without stethoscope, I know she is ok, so I decided to skip both medicine. Alhamdulillah she slept well through the night, only a bit clingy (want to latch on me, like most of the time, that's normal of her after every incident), and looks ok to this morning. Syukur sangat..

Just to share a few thing that I learned about allergy and nebulizer:

1) nebulizer is a a treatment, which will be given if needed. So don't worry about being dependency. It's not a drug.

2) Ventolin is used to clear the lung..but if your anak kerap sangat kena..and the medicine doesn't work anymore, most probably you have to take the one with steroid to surpress the reaction. Steroid will have a lot of effect, first, dependencies which means, other than steroid won't work anymore, so you have to use it over and over again, which then will lead to kidney problem, obesity, diabetic, soft bones, and many more problem.

3) when there is a foreign object that you have allergy to, your body will go to the extreme to protect from the invasion, thus will cause the inflammation of the airways (this is when you feel hard to breathe) and produce a lot of mucus/phlegm in order to suppress the foreign object (this is when the lung is full with phlegm)

4) If you are trying new food, don't give in big batch. Just try it little by little

5) DON'T try new food during evening!! This on ultimate advice which I keep on forgetting to practice. No matter how confident you are, try it early in the morning because not all clinics open during the night. It might take you longer than usual to reach the nearest open clinics/hospital if anything happen. And morning ada byk masa utk monitor her behavior. If malam, she's about to sleep dah, so takut you miss any sign.

This incident is a bit unexpected because she's all fine with formula milk (I tried the Anmum without added sugar) and Dutch Lady Kids. Maybe she's allergy to the live culture in yogurt, or this particular brand, or this particular flavour, or maybe this type of cow's milk protein. It has many possibilities, but Zahra will stay away from yogurt..until..I don't know..maybe 5 years?

Hopefully this will be the first and last nebulizer for Zahra. Little one, you stay strong and healthy ok? Ameen.....