School Board Votes to Streamline EpiPen Usage

A new policy by the Montgomery County Board of Education would authorize school nurses to use EpiPens on any student experiencing a life-threatening allergic reaction.

Nearly 100 Montgomery County students experienced life-threatening allergic reactions last school year, leading school officials to authorize school nurses to use EpiPens when necessary. According to Montgomery County Board of Education data, 27 of the 97 students who developed  anaphylaxis were not known to be susceptible to serious allergies and even more did not have life-saving medicine on file with the school’s nurse. The Board voted last week to authorize nurses and other school administrators to give any student in anaphylaxis an injectable medication, even if that student doesn’t have the medication on file or isn’t known to have an associated allergy.  Policy JPD, as the edict is named, is in response to a Senate law that requires…

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Rainy, Cooler Weather Wednesday Unlikely to Bring Allergy Relief

The Wednesday forecast calls for temperatures in the 50s and a slight chance of rain.

There will be some rain Wednesday, but meteorologists say it’s unlikely to bring much help to allergy suffers. “You are looking at pretty dry weather for the most part,” said Kyle Struckmann, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Sterling, Va. “The winds will be more north westerly, which can help somewhat but it won’t change a whole lot.” The forecast calls for a 20 percent chance of rain and mostly cloudy skies with a high near 54 degrees, slightly below the recent temperatures in the high 50s and 60s. “It will be a bit cooler then how it’s been and still very breezy,” Struckmann said. “Some wind gusts will be up to 25 miles per hour.” The cooler weather, however, is expected to ebb the threat of brushfires. On Monday and …

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From My Corner

To Beijing and Back with a Nut Allergy

My oldest is home from China after five long months. I’m seriously considering confiscating his passport.

My son returned from Beijing last weekend. He’d been there, studying Chinese, for the semester. The last few weeks he’d traveled by train through eastern China by himself. I wouldn’t say I was a nervous wreck the entire time but I was anxious to know that he was safe and sound. Part was because he was alone. Part was because he has anaphylaxis to peanuts and sesame. So yes. “Nut Boy” did China and survived. He had two emergencies that stopped my heart and shook him up, but he survived. He found places to eat that were small enough that he could speak to the person preparing the food and feel confident that he would be OK. Basically this meant a series of street vendors, which fit his tastes and his budget perfectly. He wore his MedicAlert …

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Gina Hagler

8:45 pm on Wednesday, July 13, 2011

I'm so glad!   more ›

From My Corner

What's With the Peanut-Sniffing Dogs?

With an allergic kid and allergies of her own, a mother can't help but have an opinion on peanuts.

It seems the rest of Rockville, and pretty much everywhere else, has been discussing peanut-sniffing dogs for weeks. Holed up in my office, writing away with my family's dog, I was unaware of the controversy until a friend brought it up. I went to check out the story for myself and it seems the dog was brought into a Florida school not to sniff the kids, but to sniff everything else on a one-time basis in a search for nut residue, which could have life-threatening consequences for one first-grader. Still, my friend wanted to know if I thought the needs of one outweighed the needs of the many. She wanted to know what I thought a reasonable amount of caution would be for a kid with an anaphylactic sensitivity to nuts. She asked because we …

Peanut-Sniffing Dogs? Not in Maryland Schools

But to combat allergies some schools might stop offering a lunchtime favorite: Peanut butter and jelly.

Though they aren’t going to the extremes of other parts of the country, some Maryland school systems are taking extra steps to accommodate the growing number of students who have peanut allergies. In Montgomery County school cafeterias, the "PB&J" sandwich could be in jeopardy. Maryland school districts said they would likely not go to the lengths to which a Florida elementary school has gone—requiring children to wash their hands and wipe their mouths before entering a classroom in the morning and after lunch. “I don’t think we quite go to that extent,” Charles Herndon, a spokesman with Baltimore County schools, said Wednesday after a report that students in one Florida city had to wash out their mouths after lunch. Florida school …

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Kelli

11:42 am on Thursday, April 14, 2011

Excellent reply Mary. Our allergy alert service dog's name is Rex. :) God Bless.   more ›