Sacha's Story

Four years ago, Sacha Bell offered her two-year old son, Indigo a Brazil nut to taste and watched in horror as his face started to swell.

“His face quickly turned beetroot red, and the swelling rapidly became more pronounced,” says Sacha.

Luckily, Sacha had some junior antihistamine to hand, which she gave him straight away, while shouting for her mum and dad to help.

She says: “We realised we needed to take him to hospital immediately. My dad drove us there at top speed, we called ahead, and the staff were waiting for us outside”.

Indigo was having an anaphylactic reaction (also known as anaphylactic shock). This is a severe allergic reaction, which can be life-threatening and can occur within seconds of exposure to an allergen – in this case, the Brazil nut.

Sadly, like many parents of children who have a severe allergy, Sacha discovered that Indigo was allergic in an enormously traumatic way. “It was terrifying,” she says. “I recall how it felt all over again whenever I remember that time”.

Indigo, who is now six, hasn’t had another anaphylactic reaction, due to the care and attention given to what he eats. Testing has determined that he is allergic to Brazil nuts, cashews, pistachios, pecans and walnuts – and these nuts are excluded from his diet.

Of course, for Sacha, the anxiety remains, and she is keen to raise the profile of allergy, especially within children.

I wish I had known how to properly introduce potential allergens into my son’s diet and  I wish I had known better what to look out for with allergies. It seems miraculous, looking back, that I had antihistamines in the house and was with my parents when it happened.

I wish everyone knew more about allergies generally. My friends know about allergies because of what happened to Indigo, but it doesn’t seem to be widely discussed among people or even in healthcare settings.”