He'd had an accidental ingestion last August as well ... taking a bite of one of the catered meals at a work/DLP luncheon (walnut shrimp). He toughed out the day there but came home and chugged some Benadryl. I always remember the allergy scene in the movie Hitch.
My brother's family was dealing with some allergy issues and asked for our family experience, so I wrote it up for him (below) and figured I'd put it here as a family record as well.
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Of the five boys, all but Callahan seem to have some sort of nut allergy. Luckily, none of them seem to be life-threatening. They tend to get a puffy face, rash, itch, feel sick, but it doesn't quite extend to their throat to make breathing difficult. Generally a dose of Benadryl and a little time gets them back on track.
Landon is allergic to walnuts - he's had accidental ingestion a few times. Before we recognized it, when he was just little, he'd take a bite of a cookie (with a nut in it) then put it down and ask for a popsicle. I guess it made his throat feel hot and that was how he communicated it (I remember that light-bulb moment when I put that together!)
Keaton seemed to have a lot of allergies as a baby (milk, cheese, pasta, even to some steak once). We were being cautious with everything (especially nuts) because of that. We got him tested (I don't remember the results really) and he's just tried to avoid things, getting an accidental ingestion here and there. He purposely tried cashews when he was a teen ... that didn't go well (we ended up calling the health hotline and got a prednisone prescription and were really watching him in case it started to affect his breathing. Other than totally making his nose run/stuff, breathing wasn't an issue. Itching was, we had to cover his hands with hotpad gloves so he wouldn't scratch himself silly).
Coop just seemed to naturally avoid most nuts and peanut butter (Landon, Cal and Keaton can eat PB no problem). We didn't think he had allergies, but I think he just managed to avoid things. I think it was a macadamia nut that caught him (they look like white chocolate chips), this was just a few years ago. Face swelled and felt sick. Since then he's tentatively tried pecans, cashews, walnuts, peanut butter and is staying away from those. But almonds are okay (seem to be for all the boys).
Colton had a reaction (peanut butter we think) when he was just one year, and with him being that young and not able to communicate we freaked a little and took him to the ER (we'd been up at Merrill and Lorrie's, and Katie drove in front of us and ran into the ER saying "baby not breathing! allergic reaction!" so they epi-penned him immediately. I wonder if we'd had Benadryl if he would have been okay, better to be safe than sorry). Colton seemed super instinctive at avoiding nuts (I think any small taste caused an immediate tingle in his mouth and he'd spit things out before swallowing) and we didn't have another issue until grade school ... again, those tricky looking macadamia nuts! That time he didn't look too bad but was complaining he felt sick, so I went and got him, dosed him with Benadryl and kept an eye on him while he napped it off.
Most recently this past summer he got some Chinese food and ate a bit, felt a tingle, checked the ingredients "contains walnuts" and he was pretty miserable but stayed at work through it (I gave him Benadryl when he got home). Colton has never tried peanut butter again.
So we're lucky in that it doesn't seem to swell their throat, which is the main scary issue. They are all just careful and try to avoid and have done pretty well with that. Maybe try just a tiny bit here and there to see if they feel a reaction. It's not so bad that we avoid having them around (we keep PB/Reeces ... I know with severe allergies that isn't even supposed to be in the same house). Gray just roasted up some pecans, but none of the boys felt like that was one they could try. Coop has even had "topical" reactions sometimes, getting a rash after handling packages containing some nuts.
That's the Blackham experience, for what it's worth!
