Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional UPDATE - IEP help - academics, PDD-NOS, allergies

One of the schools DS was in was laid out so that he had some activities really far from the nurse's office. They agreed to have an epipen in the far-away area. The teacher kept one in her desk too. I would argue for no locks on the epipen storage.

One thing to check on is if your school district has a sp ed bus. Our school district has one and it stops directly in front of the child's house, and waits for the parents to bring/escore the child out, then the bus driver helps them get settled (if necessary). I would imagine this particular bus driver has to have some level of training/awareness of the childrens medical needs.

yes, I think there is something like that for the bigger kids too! He's on a special ed bus now but it's only dedicated to his little preschool class and the bus driver is great and understands all his issues. We even have an agreement when she'd text me if the bus was too cold when we were dealing with -20F windchills.
Maybe this would be a great option for the next few years before he's in that age when the neighborhood kids would start to single him out.

st pauli girl ... DS is really great at reminding everyone about his allergies too. It helps that he knows I have a lot of allergies too so he has learned to look out for me as well "Mommy, you can't have that! You are allergic to it!" and he is in a habit of wearing an allergy awareness bracelet with all his allergen foods on it and he is the one mainly responsible for putting it on in the morning.

I was also thinking about getting couple of those "I'm allergic to ... " "don't feed me ... " tshirts to wear at least at the beginning for the teacher to be reminded of it on a daily basis and to wear at other occasions so I can stop constantly hovering over him.

Also, how did you handle field trips? I am inclined to NOT letting him go on field trips this little simply because there will be too many risks (other people going there, cross contamination on the bus, at eating areas, etc.). One option would be me going as well but they don't allow siblings going along and I don't have anyone to watch DS3. So unless the school would guarantee there would be a trained person going on the field trip, I am just not comfortable to let him go. Or am I taking this too far? Just as some of you, I have had far too many experiences where the allergies just weren't taken seriously and we ended up with a few very close calls.

When DS was in kindy, when kids were messier, my DH or I went on all the field trips. Since then, I've tried to go on as many field trips as possible, because I like to get to know his teachers and classmates and it's fun, but I haven't been as worried once I got to know that teacher and they understood his allergies. I sign every permission slip with "as long as his meds are with him". What makes me most comfortable is that we still send all his own food and drinks (he's in 4th grade now). He sits with his class in the lunchroom now. His friends know about his allergies, too.

Depending on how sensitive your kiddo is, something else to check into is whether the rooms your kiddo will be in will have his allergens. (E.g., specials, gym, other classrooms, library.) When I picked up my son from an afterschool activity in the library, I found little cups of peanuts in there. The kids from the afterschool care were allowed to bring their snacks into any of the afterschool activity rooms. (Since I brought this up, they have since changed the plan so that the afterschool care kids must eat their snacks in the lunchroom only.)

We have not had a more serious reaction in over a year (not counting the breathing problem episode after soy milk couple months back). Eggs are our main concern and we try really hard to avoid them at all costs as the last two reactions to eggs he had were from simply my husband making scrambled eggs in the kitchen and DS's face starting to get all puffy and upstairs just from the air circulating from the hvac vents . After two of these reactions we just went completely egg-free in the house too. Until then my husband or I would still have eggs occasionally and then wash everything including us really well. I am planning on another round of allergy testing sometime in the summer ... we do it about twice a year since in the meanwhile new allergies seem to pop up.

He's also allergic to some antibiotics, I guess that needs to go in the plan too should he ever need emergency care.

I don't have any personal experience with life-threatening allergies, but at DD's (private) school they do take them very seriously b/c there are a couple of kids who have them. DD was quite fascinated by a classmate when she was younger who has severe peanut allergy--I guess the teacher talked about it or maybe one of his parents came in and did a presentation, but for example "he could never go to the Texas Road House" (because they have giant barrels of peanuts as soon as you get in the door). So all the kids knew about this kid's allergy, and we weren't allowed to put anything with nuts in the kids' lunches, snacks, or special-event stuff because they didn't expect the (1st-3rd grade) kids to be careful enough to be safe and not share, etc. It really wasn't that hard to work around, and the kids all seemed to be really interested in helping this kid avoid nuts! Now that they are older (4th-6th), kids are allowed to bring things with nuts in their lunches because the kids are old enough to know to not share (is the rationale).

BUT they have the epi-pens in each classroom in a bag next to the fridge, with the kids' names on them, and everyone including the subs is told about them and how to use them. So they are in clear view and ready to grab and use--no trying to figure out where the nurse is, where she keeps the epi-pens, etc. If you can't get the school to do that (or it's against the rules for some reason), I have seen 'necklaces' that have the epi-pen attached that fits down inside a shirt (so it's not so obvious)--would that be okay with the school? I think it's a valid concern how long it would take someone who may not be that familiar with allergies to a) recognize an allergic reaction for which an epi-pen would be appropriate; b) realize they should be getting the epi-pen rather than just calling 911; c) try to remember what room the epi-pens are kept in; d) go there; e) find the epi-pen; f) rush back to where the kid is and administer it; and of course g) hope it takes effect in time. Actually having said that it kind of seems like the kind of thing that should be rehearsed every now and then, like a fire drill, just so any kinks can be worked out. But I'm not sure anyone actually does that.

Sorry, I'm not trying to make anyone nervous, it's just that if you think about it it really does seem like something that should be taken more seriously.

Dbat, he will be self-carrying once he's older. But at just turned 5 years old when he starts K in the fall, there is no way we could let him carry it. Can you imagine the disaster when he out of curiosity would open it and use it on himself or someone else? Or any of the other kids took it from him . So, there will definitely be a time when he will have it on him but probably not until say 3rd grade or so. But I love the idea how it's displayed in your daughter's classroom!

There are going to be some things you can plan for and use in your decision making as you look at schools, and other things you are going to have to plan-as-you-go - field trips might be one of those type of things. Our kids' elementary school didn't have buses so parents always drove on field trips. I went along on field trips and drove kids in my car so I could be sure my dd had a safe car to ride in (and an epipen-trained adult in the car). You might find that there are other parents of kids with food allergies - there was another mom in my dd's kindergarten class who's child was ana-allergic to peanuts, so she also had a "clean" car and knew how to use an epipen, so I was ok with dd riding in her car.

The thing you can't predict ahead of time are the bizarre ideas/policies etc that might crop up at school that you never think to ask about. This happened with us and field trips. I didn't think about it on the first few trips because I was carrying an epipen anyway for dd. The school packages up epipens/meds etc needed for each child and gives them all to the teacher to carry. So this other mom and I had been driving our own kids and not worrying about those epipens because we had our own in our cars. Then there was a field trip where I wasn't going to be driving but the other mom was. BUT - she didn't have an epipen with her that day and she asked to get the meds for her ds and my dd to carry in her car... and... the school wouldn't let her! That's how we found out that the only person authorized to carry student meds on the field trip was the teacher, so if we were going to send our dd on a field trip where she was riding with another parent who didn't carry around an epipen for fun (joke about the fun part!).... dd would be riding in a car without an epipen.

Soooo... little things like that seemed to always be lurking - so you can plan for as much as you can predict, but also know that there will be things you can't plan for until you find out about them! But I'm guessing you've probably already experienced that!

Best wishes,

polarbear