sbgrace
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Posts posted by sbgrace
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I would fight, argue, or even change doctors, whatever it takes to get an epipen.
My daughter had her first reaction at birth to cows milk ( she was transferred to another hospital and they gave her formula ), she threw it up immediately. I knew there was an issue then. I did a total elimination diet while breast feeding ( as she was even sick with my milk ) and thought milk and eggs were the problem. When she was 6 months old I fed her Gerber pears 1st foods, she immediately started swelling in her face, gasping for breath and hives. I gave her benadryl and a xopenex treatment, while waiting for the ambulance. It was enough to calm the reaction, they did not transport her. ( I later found out that pears contain no milk, but are made on the same machines that milk products are, so her reaction was to trace amounts. )
My pediatrician thought I was nuts, I screamed and hollered, threatened and demanded. He finally did an allergy test. She had the highest reaction the lab had ever seen to eggs and milk, so much so that my ped even refuses to do a scratch test. These were the two I suspected anyway.
He immediately wrote me a prescription for an epipen Jr. We take it everywhere we go, even though she has never truly went anaphylactic. I carry food with her everywhere we go, she never eats anything I haven't prepared. But she is 2, I am sure it will happen sometime. I am prepared and ready if it does.
That is anaphylactic. Maybe you know that already? Any two body systems is anaphylaxis. Hives/swelling/breathing...ana.
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Funk Butter works for me (none of the other "safe" ones do). I love it because I don't have to use aluminum and yet I don't stink at all!
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My ds had a skin test of 4++++ and a RAST of class 0-1 at 0.15. I was told he was severely allergic based on skin testing. He only had a very mild reaction after eating a peanut butter cookie and I have been very very careful to avoid all peanuts and tree nuts since then. He similar results for tree nuts as well.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/20/health/he-allergy-tests20
There are better articles out there but this is the first I found.IgE tests are very good at confirming the lack of an allergy -- but only when the antibody is just plain missing. In many cases, for reasons scientists don't understand, just about everybody has antibodies to foods they don't react to.The same is true for skin tests, which involve dipping a needle into a solution of the suspected allergen, then pricking the skin and watching for mosquito bite-like bumps to appear.
These skin tests are fairly reliable when they're negative. Positive reactions to foods, on the other hand, are wrong up to 50% of the time.
Food allergy testing has a 50% false positive rate for foods. It's more accurate for environmental allergies I believe. A good allergist will confirm a questionable result (i.e. a child has consumed the food without an obvious reaction but there is a possibility of food allergy) with a food trial.
Skin prick reaction severity (wheel size) don't necessarily predict severity of allergy. However, if you saw even a mild actual reaction to peanut you've got a peanut allergy and you need the epi pen and etc.
My son's anaphylaxis was biphasic and severe. He had throat swelling and full body hives very soon after eating trace nut (we think cashew). Two hours later his blood pressure dropped, his face swelled, he began vomiting and having diarrhea. We didn't have an epi pen. I missed the initial reaction because I was an idiot about all this. He made it to the ER and I feel very fortunate he lived honestly. It doesn't hurt to have an epi pen if a food allergic child also has asthma. But it's hard to convince doctors of that at least around here.
Any child who has any two body system reactions to a food has had anaphylaxis and needs an epi pen. So food skin reaction with asthma is anaphylaxis. Vomiting with facial swelling/runny nose is likely ana. Not every anaphylactic reaction involves hives or any skin symptoms. Anaphylaxis can be relatively mild one time and then deadly the next. In retrospect on another occasion my son had been at a birthday party and had diarrhea/stomach pain and asthma after eating the cake. That cake was chocolate and very likely nut cross contaminated. I didn't connect them to food allergy let alone anaphylaxis at the time because I expected to see hives, throat swelling or something else that screamed allergy/anaphylaxis to me. All his food reactions had been hives previously. In his anaphylactic reaction he did have hives but I still missed it. He told me he had a "weird rock" in his throat. I was worried given the hives but I thought if his throat was swelling he'd be in distress, etc. It's not always obvious. And if it had progressed to fully closing his throat it would very likely have been too late even for an epi pen if we had one at the time (we didn't). A significant percent of kids who die from anaphylaxis got an epi pen at some point. But they need it very fast for it to be most effective. Delay/waiting to see, etc. is deadly.
Any child allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, sesame seeds, shellfish, etc. foods that have a high correlation to anaphylaxis needs a two pack of epi pens even if anaphylaxis has never been seen.
And then...anaphylaxis even among kids with food allergies is rare. This is especially true if those allergies don't involve "high ana potential" foods. Lots of kids will have food allergies and asthma and never have anaphylaxis. So the average food allergic child is at very small risk of anaphylaxis.
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It's $6.00 a gallon at one store here and I felt that was a good price. That you can get organic milk for $2.50 is a complete shock to me!
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Ah. That's hard because there are false positives and if he can eat peanuts without reactions it's very likely one of those false positives.
Tree nuts were negative or they didn't test? (Asking because some of those cross with OAS I believe).
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He was positive to nuts?
If he was positive to nuts (any of them) in testing no question he needs an epi pen no matter the suspicion of OAS.
Outside of that most allergists won't give epi pens for hive only reactions. Our first ana reaction we didn't have an epi pen though I had asked many times for one just in case. My son had extensive hive reactions, asthma (not reactions, but asthma + food allergies together increase ana risk), and a family history of anaphylactic reactions. We still didn't receive an epi pen until we actually had an anaphylactic reaction. His ana was nuts, not fruit. His OAS reactions are fruits.
Asthma alone needs a medic alert if he's got asthma. Allergies outside of anaphylaxis and drug allergies typically don't in my understanding.
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We use the Frio thing in heat/when it will be outside in a backpack. I keep leaving them in cars :tongue_smilie: and when you do that it's the end of the pens. Expensive mistakes!
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One of my son's was in lesson 20, doing everything Headsprout asked, and "reading" the words/books well when I realized he couldn't sound out a single word he hadn't seen in Headsprout.
If the child comes in reading CVC words maybe it works better and it worked ok for my son who was doing that when he entered the program. It's very repetitive and if a child leans toward sight reading for some reason the program will allow that or at least did for my son. I also dislike how quickly sight words are introduced and they are using words that can be decoded phonetically as sight words.
So...I've taught him to read (both kids really) with other programs. I do a lot of extra outside of Headsprout and I feel that's responsible for the bulk of the progress for both kids. So while my boys have enjoyed the program I wish I hadn't spent the money. I would chose differently if I could.
I do think it's so repetitive initially (in the first 40 lessons anyway) in a palatable way that it helps fluency. But I don't feel it's pure phonics nor entirely comprehensive phonics either one.
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I'm glad you've got your answer.
Look into the food families that go with those trees so you know what fruits in what seasons may be issues. My son can eat cooked (or frozen) from some but not all of his OAS fruits.
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:grouphug: We've lost two cats--one to cancer and one to organ failure. You certainly will know. And the time you've got now to love on her, play with her, make her final time on earth what you want it to be will (I hope) be a comfort to you. :grouphug:
Re: suffering. We didn't let them suffer. That's part of how you know. With my girl with cancer we had longer. Then she began to cry and really stopped eating all at once. We knew that was time. With the other we had far less time from when we knew to the end. I don't believe she had any pain. However, her quality of life was so compromised that it was obvious it was time. With the second I do have some regret. We hospitalized her to stabilize and then took her home and did IV's and some other things for a while because I just wasn't ready to let her go. She got sick so quickly. I wish we hadn't prolonged it even though the prolonging in her case was under a week. I just wasn't ready and that wasn't the best for her.
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I honestly don't get the teacher intensive thing about Rightstart. It takes no planning/prep. In fact, I've read some dislike the scripted nature of the teacher's guide. When people say teacher intensive I assume it's because you do the lessons with the child as it's all hands on. I would assume, though, most early level math programs are teacher/student together? Isn't it? Is Math U See something the child does on his/her own at the K or even 1st grade level? Maybe! I don't know. I want to be with my kids for this early foundational math no matter the program I use. I realize if I had more kids though I might need a program that didn't require me (if that exists at this level).
From what I can tell both programs are really good at getting the conceptual "why" behind math. I'm sure either are good approaches. I'm equally sure certain ones fit certain children better. I think RightStart fits us better. If you can get your hands on MathUSee somehow to compare I imagine you'll know just from looking which is a better fit for your child. I'm still not sure I'd switch though.
I did look at MUS (in person) but I've not used it. It seemed Math U See was more worksheet based than RightStart by a lot. My impression was that it was a little "one note" compared to RightStart's variety of materials and activities used. Of course that was my initial impression not having actually used it! RightStart's variety and quick, segmented lessons really work well for my attention challenged boy.
I do think both programs are good though, again, one might fit a particular child better. I can't imagine MathUSee is so much superior (or vice-versa) that a person would want to switch if what they have is working. But if you start RightStart and it's not a fit MathUSee would seem like a logical next try. I know someone who switched to RightStart from MathUSee because the MathUSee just wasn't working. I could see that happening with either program. I can't imagine, though, jumping from one of them to the other if what I had was working because they are both strong programs.
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Just agreeing with others that a lot of it rings true with my son who does have issues. He's got an autism spectrum diagnosis.
FWIW, The Nurtured Heart Approach by Glasser has been wonderful for him parenting wise. I read the book "All Children Flourishing" not his original book. Fits Andrew like a glove and in fact he needs it. I'm wondering if your son does too.
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We went off-season (right before the December holiday crowds would hit) and it was fantastic. We followed date guidelines from Unofficial Guide if I remember correctly.
We did get a GAC. My son is autistic and has mito. They don't ask for dx. but rather needs. Example: he can be overwhelmed by crowds and noise, he can't walk long distances, etc. They provided a card that allowed us to use wheelchair entrances. It's not necessarily supposed to cut down the line but it almost always did for us. It also allowed us to use his stroller as a wheelchair. Stroller issue of course not helpful at your kid's ages. But basically Disney is very special needs friendly. We couldn't have gone without that card.
As a side note mitochondrial disease qualifies as Make a Wish I believe.
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edited out. Sorry. I didn't read you've already got bocce and it doesn't work for your lawn. Oops!
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I can tell you what we do but it's a real struggle here:
no carpet in the bedroom, wash all his bedding on hot/dry on hot once a week, encased mattress, etc. We are saving for a hepa unit for his room. Our air conditioning system does have a hepa filter. I agree with the above poster that the 140 matters and we do have our water set on that for that reason. But I *think* hot dry gets hot enough to do the job. We do both.
Hepa vacuum (important for dust/pet allergies)
Showers before bed every time. This is really important. You don't want her taking the allergens on her hair and etc. to her bed. Similarly, we don't play in my son's room. It's as allergy free as we can make it. We also shower when we come inside from outside during his outdoor allergy seasons. That's a pain in the rear but does seem to make a difference.
We tried nasal rinses as that helped my mil but it didn't help my child.
We re-homed our cat. Really hard...at any rate no pets in the bedroom.
He takes zyrtec and it didn't help nearly enough. Claritan helped even less (not at all it seemed). We added singulair. Big help. We're still not at 100% control but it's made a huge difference. Next step would be nasal steroids.
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Certain things have had years of what I consider high quality play value here:
1. Hotwheel type cars and trucks
3. Magnatiles
4. Wooden blocks of all sorts
4. Lego
5. Train set (wooden track w/variety of trains)
6. Little counter bears and beads. They are people and cargo and money, etc.--so many things.
7. My kids have gotten a ton of play value out of rocking horses--they are horses, trains, cars, rockets (turned upside down), and on.
8. They don't play with it as much anymore but their play kitchen and dishes/food/etc. got tons of good use for years.
Regrets here: playmobile, Plan toys dollhouse and parking garage, imaginext (we've got the pirate ship and the castle and both have hardly been touched), those plastic realistic looking animals--I got really nice ones and no one played much with them at all.
My nephew loves playmobile. My friend's child loves those plastic realistic animals and dollhouse. I heard great things about Imaginext. Kids vary so much!
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To use the Medi-share/Samiritan's purse you need to be very health before you joined (i.e. no pre-existing dx's/treatments) and be willing/able to cover preventative care and alternative care yourself. In the case of one or both it doesn't cover things under say $300. So basically you need to be able to either stay healthy or pay your routine bills yourself. I think it would work for a family without any medical things going on. For us it certainly wouldn't.
Whatever you do make sure you have some coverage for major medical--i.e. umbrella/catastrophic type coverage. A car accident wrecked my bil financially because he didn't have that.
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I picked what I felt would be the best option for us in each category. You don't need to stay with the same program/company for everything.
I found both searching the homeschool reviews site and this (WTM) board most helpful for selecting curriculum. I've been very happy with most of our choices.
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When my baby was in the hospital and I was nursing the hospital kept me very stocked with snacks. They had a nursing mother's snack room and I got the hospital food as well. If she's gluten free snacks are harder and I'd stock up for her if you could. Snacks are better than meals I think unless the hospital isn't feeding her. Since she's nursing I gather I would think they are?
The best things for me anytime any of my kids were in the hospital have been those I trusted sitting with the child so I could take a walk, take a shower, have dinner, etc. I never would leave my kids alone so it was nice to be able to leave the room. Reading materials were always appreciated too.
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Oops, cross posted with Ottakee and she said it better!
I used instructions from the 3rsplus site. If I remember right they have a free resources section and under that there is a PDF for getting started. I read that and we were off. These books have been great here for reading instruction.
I did make the notched card described on the site. We read through the words listed at the front first. I've occasionally had to give simple instruction with those new words--(i.e. "th" says /th/) but what I love is how the books teach themselves. It's structured perfectly to guide the student and eliminate issues. Generally I just reminded them to "say the sounds" if needed. The books did the teaching.
My boys love the characters and stories in these books. They are so excited to read them always. I am using the first set online. We have five left. I purchased the second set yesterday. It will be nice to have them as actual books.
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I have a child with ASD too. Trust me, he needs more training to be adaptable than others, and the sooner you start, the easier it will be for him. I catered to my ASD child for too long, and made it that much harder for him to learn to be adaptable to change. I'm NOT saying to never cater to him but if a child with AS is going to function independently as an adult, they must learn to be adaptable even if it isn't easy for them.
I would think about this aspect. One of the biggest challenges as a parent of a spectrum child (and one of the most important for our kids future functioning) is to help them learn to be flexible and handle it when things don't go as planned. I believe your actions, while I get the why for you, might actual reinforce his rigidity. Instead this could be an area of opportunity to model that plans change and people are unpredictable and yet it's ok.
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I love our Frigidaire. We're hard on washers and it's never had a problem. I do run the sanitize cycle once or twice a week. I've never had mildew issues.
My favorite thing is that I can set laundry to run on a delay cycle. I almost always have a load set to wash before we get up. It's spinning out usually as we finish breakfast. I'm never behind on laundry anymore. It also uses less water by far compared to our top loader.
The only drawback for me is that it drips when I open the door and I dislike that. I mean we've got the thing to catch it but it still bugs me. I also found top loaders easier to load/unload.
I don't know if the washer is better but I had a Fisher/Paykel top load dryer. We had problem after problem with the thermostat shorting out and the thing wouldn't heat. Then it would take forever to get a repair person, get back ordered parts, etc. And it still wouldn't work and they'd order more parts. Lowe's finally took it back. I felt lucky with that because I feared we were stuck with a machine. It worked fine during the first month so we were past the return policy. It broke the first time about 40 days after we bought it. It worked properly exactly 2 loads in the next 3.5 months. It was a nightmare. Basically, I was very unhappy with the Fisher/Paykel warranty service/customer service and their product too.
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I'll check out both of those closer. It looks like the scoping is a significant upfront cost so I don't think that's an option right now for me.
The virtualvocations does require me to pay to access it looks like. You found work via the site? I'll do some research on it.
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I'm hoping today is a sell. :grouphug:
Sleep
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
:grouphug: I, too, suggest melatonin (I would say 5-HTP as well but I would not take that if your doctor might put you on an anti-depressant).
I hope you got some sleep tonight.