The amazing ballooning baby.

We had confirmation that Erbie is still allergic to milk or more specifically casein (milk protein) when his whole face swelled up last week – the cause an innocuous Chupa Chups lolly.

He has had Chupa Chups lollies before but I’m usually very vigilant and only allow the fruit flavoured ones. This time he insisted on vanilla – no milk in vanilla, right, I searched the ingredients and could only find vanilla flavour, so thought it would be okay. Half way through the lolly and halfway round Sainsbury’s he gave the lolly back (they do seem to know if something is wrong) and I noticed the tell tale hives all around his mouth. I finished the lolly, wiped him down and we hurried home, the hives disappeared and I thought nothing more about it.

The Spanish Chupa Chups logo designed by none other than Salvador Dali in 1969

Twenty minutes later his nose started streaming and the left side of his face started to swell up. His sinuses became so inflamed he looked like he’d done four rounds in the ring with Tyson. I gave him a dose of liquid Piriton (an off the shelf antihistamine) and whisked him out of the door as his top lip began to lose all definition.

Thankfully there is an A&E 10 minutes up the road, he fell asleep on the way. I kept telling myself he was fine, he’d just fallen asleep because it was nap time and the Piriton would have knocked him out, but I couldn’t stop the nagging doubt. His little fist gripped onto my finger so tightly, I had visions of the girl I’d seen having an asthma attack in class back in secondary school who went into seizure as the carried her out of the classroom, her left hand in rigour. I called his name over and over as I ran across the main road to the hospital.

Being English I waited in an orderly fashion at the reception desk as a vaguely familiar looking actor off the telly and his toddler with a gash to the forehead gave their details before me. We were all then ushered through to the children’s waiting area. Erbie was still out cold on my shoulder, another child with a similar gash to the head was playing noisily in the corner. After what must have been another twenty minutes Erbie woke up, his voice was croaky and his face was still swollen but he was back.

A friendly nurse took his temperature and heart rate then checked his body for a rash, all thankfully normal and as I had already given him Piriton there was nothing they could do accept keep him there for surveillance. He got given a bed in a room with kids TV and I begged a clean nappy and directions to the café.

After 3 hours the swelling had started to subside, he got checked over by a doctor and we left just as toddler nap time was coming to an end and the waiting room in conjunction was starting to fill up.

I was informed there may be secondary reaction 12 hours later but not to worry he was probably fine and thankfully he was.

NB: Casein is used as a carrier protein in certain vaccinations, if it is injected directly into the blood stream of a 3 month old baby with a higher levels of antibodies than a non breastfed baby it may be probable that the body will form an immune response to the protein along with the disease being vaccinated against. Most toddlers grow out of milk protein allergy by the time they are 5 or 6.