THE PRESCRIPTION YOUR ALLERGIST MAY NOT BE TELLING YOU ABOUT!
Have you considered going to see an allergist and aren't sure whether allergy testing is the right move for now?
Or maybe your little one tested positive for foods and you were prescribed an expensive EpiPen?
Have you heard of Auvi-Q? It’s an EpiPen designed just for infants who have life-threatening IgE allergies. The medicine is injected into baby’s thigh to prevent an anaphylactic reaction. It’s incredibly inexpensive at just $25 out of pocket for those in the USA with insurance! Better yet…it gets delivered to your home!
When my daughter showed signs of possible peanut allergy, we went to our allergist for a consultation. At the time she was still under age 1, and our allergist was very conservative about the pros and cons of doing allergy testing at this time.
Our allergist said:
Skin prick testing can be unreliable due to sensitive baby skin
Blood testing is the most reliable, but not something we want to put a baby through unless necessary (and expensive to test multiple foods!)
Our allergist left the ball in our court as far as whether to go ahead and do allergy testing NOW or wait. She said we could wait and she could prescribe the Auvi-Q to have on hand, just in case there was some accidental exposure to peanuts, followed by a reaction. That seemed like the perfect middle ground solution to us!
Auvi-Q without allergy testing may NOT be the right route for your child depending on the severity of reactions. However, this is definitely something worth bringing up during an allergy consult before you jump into testing.
Ask your allergist if they would be comfortable with this being an option with avoidance of that food until your child gets a little older. At the end of the day, this protocol wouldn’t be much different than if your child tested POSITIVE on allergy testing. You would still need to avoid and would still need an EpiPen.
Most EpiPens are extremely expensive but Auvi-Q has created an affordable option. it also comes with a “tester” so that you can practice in case you need to administer.