A huge shout out to Carmen Beato’s post in Living with an Egg Allergy for
highlighting critical information on use of a second EpiPen! Carmen starts
her post with the words “Please Read”.
The need to use the EpiPen in the other thigh for it to work is shown,
coming out of the Natasha Inquest in 2018.
Natasha’s Law is an important law calling for clear identification of
ingredients in food both for packaged food and take out food! An inquest
into Natasha’s severe reaction to sesame seed in a take out sandwich with
no identification of sesame seed in the sandwich packaging.
A Natasha inquest in 2018 into the details of the severe reaction
provided important information that was not given much publicity. The
coroner stated in Natasha’s case the second EpiPen went into the same
place, same thigh with no knowledge this was incorrect.
It was advised the second EpiPen could not work in the same spot because
of saturation of the blood vessels on that side. To work effectively, the
second EpiPen needed to be used on the other thigh. Despite other factors
such as being on a plane at the time of the reaction, the coroner stated that
Natasha might have had a better chance had that been done.
As a parent in a family with grown children and food allergies, I can say
I have never heard this critical information after having navigated food
allergies for several decades as a parent and an allergy blogger! Shocking
that this information is not known universally so it can be used to protect
and save the allergy population!!
This life-saving information must be distributed and placed everywhere
where the EpiPen is essential – from the doctor to the pharmacist to the
allergy population and their world. In other words everywhere!
Living with an Egg Allergy
Carmen Beato · October 6, 2021 · Living with an Egg Allergy Please read.
· Last week, with so much press and media attention around Natasha’s Law, we were often reminded about the details that surfaced following Natasha’s inquest in 2018. One such piece of information bothered me greatly, because it was so important and yet we’d had no idea about it at all. Natasha’s anaphylactic reaction to sesame seeds was so severe that it caused swelling of her airways. Her father injected her with two Epi-Pens in an attempt to reverse the allergic reaction. The first epi-pen was injected into her right outer thigh. But Natasha wasn’t improving and she begged for the second Epi-Pen to be given which her father did, once again into her right outer thigh. But it made no difference at all. At Natasha’s inquest, an Allergy Specialist was asked why in her opinion, the Epi-Pens had not worked. One of the reasons she gave was that when the first Epi-Pen had been injected into Natasha’s thigh, the adrenaline would have caused all the blood vessels in that area to constrict. Her allergic reaction was so severe that she required another dose of adrenaline to be administered quickly, but when injected into the same place as before, the adrenaline would not have been able to enter the blood vessels, it had nowhere to go. To counter this, she told the coroner that the second Epi-Pen injection should have been injected into her other leg – the opposite thigh. In all our GP and allergy clinic visits, in all our online research, we had never been given such information and yet it made perfect sense. We are approaching medical professionals to get the latest guidance and will share when we hear from them.
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