A CHARFORD mum has issued a plea to other parents to be more aware of children with extreme allergies after living on ‘high alert’ for the past eight years.

Martine Reynolds discovered her son George was allergic to peanuts when at 14 months old he tried a tiny amount of peanut butter and went into anaphylactic shock, having to be rushed to the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch. A month later George tried some egg, and had a similar reaction, which led to blood tests, and it was revealed that he was allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, chickpeas, lentils, all legumes, peas, and sesame seeds.

She said: “It affects us in daily life and it impacts us as a family in so many ways. It’s only when you’re living with it 24/7 that you realise. You go out and you’re on high alert all the time when you’re out that someone might have eaten a Snickers bar and touched a door handle. It’s a life threatening condition.”

George, who is now eight, has to have an epi pen, and a spare everywhere he goes in case he comes into contact with any of the foods he’s allergic to, and if he does react to anything he has to spend a minimum of six hours in hospital, in case of a delayed allergic reaction.

Martine added: “On one occasion he had a plain white roll from a supermarket bakery with cheese and a lot of cut up apple. He was fine at the time, he went and played, and when he came back his lips were swollen. His eyes were swelling shut and quickly he became unconscious, and I was on the phone to 999. We think that was probably one sesame seed.

Over the years, Martine has received help with allergy information from Allergy UK, and last year she ran a half marathon to raise money for them, but it isn’t easy to identify allergens in products, especially when recipes change all the time, and even some different sizes of packaging for the same product, contain different ingredients.

She added: “We can’t just go on holiday and book a hotel somewhere, we’d have to liaise with staff about what he can eat or can’t eat so whenever we go away it has to be self catering. Everything we do is limited, going to friends’ houses, we don’t really buy things like peanuts and nuts, if we have a takeaway it has to be when the children are in bed and hope they don’t come downstairs, because we couldn’t touch him, we couldn’t kiss him, we’d have to brush our teeth.

“I don’t think that he’s particularly bothered because it’s all he’s ever known, he’s never known any different, we’re the ones that are paddling frantically to keep him safe, triple checking labels with every single thing, every single time.

“It’s an absolute minefield it really is. There’s no easy way of being an allergy parent. If we relaxed it doesn’t really bear thinking about.”

Martine is keen to make sure other people are aware of the kinds of allergic reactions some children can have.

She said: “I would ask people to be mindful that allergies are not always just coughing or sneezing, which in themselves can be miserable enough, but there are allergies that are far more severe, and it can only take touching something.

“They are still children and individuals, and we want to live as normal a lifestyle as possible within the realms of safety. It’s not an easy combination, it’s tricky – that’s an understatement.”

For more information on extreme allergic reactions, visit allergyuk.org.