Our experience occurred at Sam's Club.  My husband and I had been there for a few hours with all 5 of our children while we shopped and waited for new tires to be put on our van.  It was about dinner time, and we were planning to go home and cook dinner, but all of us were starving. 

I walked several times past the big container full of Fancy Mixed Nuts, and at the last minute I decided it would be a great healthy snack to hold us all over till dinner.  So we paid for our groceries and walked over to the car care area to pick up our van.  As we waited for my husband to complete the process of picking it up, I opened the nuts and gave each child a few nuts. 

For our 2 year old Joshua, I specifically picked out 3 cashews, as I thought they would be easy to chew to prevent him from choking on them.  He stuck the 3 cashews in his mouth chewed 2-3 times, and immediately started coughing and spit them back out in my hand.  He never even swallowed the nuts. 

I thought he had swallowed a little piece of one wrong and it was causing him to cough, so I gave him a drink, which did not relieve his coughing.  I kept asking "are you okay?" and he said "no" every time.  Within a minute or two, his lips started to swell and he started to show hives, then his eyes started swelling and he was drooling and his voice was becoming hoarse.  All of this occurred within 3 minutes of putting the nuts in his mouth. 

By now I recognized that he was having an allergic reaction, and I picked him up and ran with him to the pharmacy in Sam’s Club and asked them for Benadryl. By the time we got to the pharmacy he could no longer make any noise with his coughing, as his airway was swelling shut.  They looked at him and immediately handed me a bottle of Benadryl.  I gave him a dose and asked the pharmacist to call 911. 

The ambulance arrived. They started an IV and transported us to the hospital about 3-4 miles up the road where he was given steroids and epinephrine, as well as placed on a cardiac monitor.  They monitored him for about 4 hours in the ER and then released him. 

It took about a week for all the hives to disappear.  He remained on steroids and Benadryl for 3 days after the event.  Not long after this reaction we saw an allergist and he was determined to be allergic only to tree nuts, but we were instructed to avoid all nuts, as they can develop a reaction to peanuts as well.  We now carry an EpiPen and Benadryl fast melts everywhere we go.

Tammie L.
Colorado Springs, CO