Tree nuts include, but are not limited to, cashews, almonds, Brazil nuts, pecans, pistachios, pine nuts, and walnuts. Also, a tree nut allergy usually lasts a lifetime fewer than ten percent of people allergic to tree nut outgrow it. Partly because peanuts are legumes, whereas a tree nut is a hard-shelled nut. The OIT protocol for tree nut, specifically walnut and cashew, is a little different from that of OIT for peanut. It is also his protocol that I followed for OIT for peanut. The protocol is one started by an Allergist out of Dallas.
Seeing first hand that OIT worked for Isaih’s peanut allergy, it was Isaih’s mom who first approached me about starting Oral Immunotherapy for tree nut. Once fearful of flying or going on long vacations to unfamiliar places, the Emericks now travel outside of the United States. And life, Lisa has told me, is very different for Isiah and his entire family. Today, Isaih eats his daily maintenance dose of whole peanuts without any sign of an allergic reaction. Before OIT for peanut we lived in fear feeling like we were always walking on eggshells,” said Lisa Emerick, Isiah’s mom. Now, he is back ready and determined with the help of his family, to fight his tree nut allergy with Oral Immunotherapy. He completed OIT for peanut nearly two years ago at the age of 10. One of these peanut allergy patients who has undergone OIT with me is 12-year-old Isaih Emerick. As a physician and mom myself, it has been amazing to witness such relief and satisfaction from these peanut allergy families seeking a sense of freedom. I have watched these kids, several of whom have been hospitalized after eating peanut in the past, successfully eat 24 peanuts without even blinking an eye.
#Cashew allergy reaction series#
Over a series of months, the patient eats traces of peanut protein, gradually and methodically increasing the amount he or she eats, over time. Since 2015, I have treated over 50 children with peanut allergy, one of the most wide-spread and dangerous food allergies, taking them through Oral Immunotherapy to an end-point where they can safely be around or even eat peanut. That may sound crazy, but what OIT does is desensitize the body to an allergen so that when that allergen is ingested on a regular basis, the body does not react adversely or send a patient into anaphylaxis, a serious, rapid-onset allergic reaction that can be fatal. Over a series of months I will feed them the very protein from walnut and cashew that they are allergic to.
These patients are my first ever, allergic to walnut and cashew, whom I have begun treating with Oral Immunotherapy, or, what is more commonly referred to as OIT.
These patients, just four and fourteen years old, along with their families, are optimistic that four to five months from now they will walk back out out this same door at our Stone Oak Clinic with little to no threat of experiencing a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction to cashew or walnut. In June, two young patients walked through our Advanced Allergy door filled with newfound hope.
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