Hope For Hamish

18/08/2025

A Little Update:
So we are just over a year into OIT. Lots of ups and downs with dosing. We are currently on 27mls milk, but unfortunately the winter bugs have caught up with Hamish and today he is sick. So dosing has stopped again and I will restart once he is over this cold. Feeling a bit frustrated as it feels like as soon as we are on a winning streak, a cold comes out of nowhere and shoots us back down. Hard not to be disappointed. So today is not a good one, but we keep going! He is still so much further ahead than he was this time 18 months ago where we were on strict food avoidance.

We have also had a consult with a gut health dietician and have decided to try the elimination diet to try to find what is Hamish's EOE trigger. Today is day 1 of eliminating wheat from Hamish's diet to see if that is a trigger. Not the best day to start when he doesn't want to eat because he is sick!

06/05/2025

This is a late post given Easter was a few weeks ago. I picked Hamish up from his after school care and noticed the kids were all watching the Peter Rabbit movie. I was THAT parent that spoke to the educator and just let her know the content and that I would prefer if the movie wasn't shown in Hamish's presence. Michael as always, mortified at me was halfway back to the car 🤣 BUT, she was super understanding once I explained why. If you don't know, you don't know. Anyway, on the topic, I will link below a list of movies which mock allergies and anaphylaxis for anyone who may be interested. Sadly, lots of them are kids movies.
It's a pretty low blow and really winds me up. Imagine having to live with the fact that a mouthful of food can kill you and sit in a cinema where it is used as comedy and listening to everyone surrounding you laughing.
Prior to having Hamish, I can remember finding the scene in Hitch pretty funny, but now that I have lived experience of the fear of allergy, it just makes me feel sick and angry.
Hope this post is helpful in educating people on why these scenes are not funny. No one sits in a cinema and laughs at someone who has cancer, why should anaphylaxis be any different?

06/05/2025

This is your reminder to get involved in this year's Food Allergy Week and take part in our short survey that'll help us learn more about how people living with food allergy navigate travel. ✈️🚆🛳️🌴

Whether you've travelled locally or overseas, or are avoiding travel because of food allergy - we'd love to hear from you.

👉Click here https://loom.ly/cMIlh84 to participate in the short anonymous survey that'll only take a few minutes. Every answer helps!

22/04/2025

A powerful message to make people stop and think about how dangerous it is for our loved ones every time they eat. Check your food label packaging today for everything you eat, how many times do you read may contain? Imagine having to take the risk of severe illness or death every single time you eat. It's not fun.

Most people don’t realise the immense burden of responsibility that food allergies place on individuals and their families. The fear of accidentally consuming their allergen isn’t just an occasional worry, it’s a constant reality. Asking for transparency of food ingredients, can feel like you are asking for the earth. Every meal, every snack, every bite comes with a question: “Is this safe for me?”

Clear and accurate ingredient labelling from the food industry is essential for people with food allergies to be able to make safe and informed food choices. It is important for May Contain labels to be taken seriously, yet due to the mass, often blanket labelling of them, these statements can often feel lazy; their lack of regulation and consistency, incredibly frustrating.

For many people with food allergies, the overuse of May Contain labelling doesn’t just limit options, it severely restricts their already narrow choices, making an often-challenging diet feel even more difficult.

This sandwich analogy will strike a nerve for many of you.

So we ask the question:
🥪Would 'they' eat a sandwich that ‘May Contain’ Salmonella?

We think not.

02/04/2025

Took a little trip to Melbourne. Another 2 successful flights done and dusted 🙌
Prior to going, we were back at the start with dosing for Hamish following his break from OIT (see previous post). Dosing was stopped due to flying and yesterday we restarted again. We have a very conservative plan to get Hamish restarted and back on track. So positive news again!!!!

Plus, little hi-five to us for another safe trip where we navigated airports, flights, air shows and places to eat out with Hamish. Doing our best to ensure he feels safe and confident to travel. He even advocated for himself by telling the waitress that he was anaphylactic to dairy so no milk in his scrambled eggs 😄

12/03/2025

Little update on Hamish.
February was not a kind month to us. Hamish had an anaphylaxis on Tuesday 11th February just before bedtime. It came completely out of the blue. He had had his dose of milk over 2 hours prior to it. He was a day off updosing to 50mls. He was watching Sonic on tv and just started coughing which wouldn't stop. He then started to get distressed and was constantly clearing his throat. Put his dad on facetime (he was working away) to see if that would calm/distract him, but after 5 or so minutes he asked for his epipen. I gave the epipen and thankfully the coughing stopped within a few minutes then about 5-10 minutes later he felt much better (just in time for the paramedics to arrive!). We then had an overnight stay in hospital. During his overnight stay Hamish started to have regular low heart rates in the 50s, and this is still happening so we have an appointment with his paediatrician this week to try to get to the bottom of it. He also had a surveillance scope to check his EOE status and it has also reared its ugly head. So for now we continue with daily steroid treatment for that.
We have been off milk for a month but are currently working on a new plan to restart the milk whilst trying to minimise triggering the EOE more.
Hamish has had more anxiety again with the anaphylaxis and an incident at school with a child throwing Cheezels at him to "see what would happen".
So, we are hoping that March and the rest of the year will be a better month and that we can start moving forward again. Really gutted we got so far and then had the initial set back of the anaphylaxis. I think it may have been caused by a combination of the hot weather and Hamish just starting back at school after the school holidays and not yet being back into a sleep routine.

I just wanted to be transparent and show the good, the bad and the ugly of this journey. I wouldn't change it though, I am still glad to be on this journey. I just find it disheartening to have a setback. But we are doing this for Hamish's adulthood, so we have plenty of time to get to where we want to be 💙

19/11/2024

Day 97 yesterday and in typical Hamish style, he is sick! He has some sort of virus so we have had to stop his milk. Just a reminder that this process is a long process and not a quick fix. It is frustrating when setbacks happen because I just want to race to the finish line, but that isn't the way this works. Day of rest today, for him and me as he kept me awake most of the night and hopefully tomorrow he will be feeling better

16/11/2024

Day 95 of OIT and we are updosing to 25ml. This is the highest dose of milk so far that Hamish has had. Fingers crossed that we continue to progress smoothly. I haven't given Hamish any baked milk/cake since we got home as I had been waiting until we were back to 20mls milk (what he was having when he passed his milk challenge in America). So next weekend, when he has been on 25mls for a week and his dad is home, we will get him a little kipling cake slice or something yummy to have as we need to also keep giving him bits of baked milk. I just wanted to wait until we were home, back into a routine with no sickness or tiredness and back to the volume of milk he was on when we left the clinic.

25ml of milk is such a little amount of milk but still so much that it makes me nervous!

20/10/2024

Here is a little picture of Hamish at the Inn Solihul on our way back to London for our flight home to Australia. He again enjoyed his breakfast being cooked separately for him and he had his dose of milk with his brekky. Again, I cannot recommend the Premier Inns that we stayed at as they were all super attentive to his needs. We stayed at 3 different ones during our travels and they all provided excellent service.

Since being home Hamish was sick, so we again had to stop his OIT dose for a few days. Typical after everything going better than plan in America, that when we get home we have to navigate a few obstacles. Luckily even though we have left the clinic, we are still under DR Agrawal's care and he is super responsive to any questions we have.

Currently we are working on getting Hamish back up to 20mls of milk per day, this was the dose he was on when we left Atlanta. We are on day 3 of 10mls milk today and then I will keep updosing by 2.5mls every 3 days until we get to baseline again. Then we can continue on our journey to kicking this allergies butt!!!!!!

09/10/2024

Apologies for the lack of updates over the last few weeks. We were super busy with our family in Scotland. We had a little bump in the road, where we ended up giving Hamish adrenaline as he had symptoms of anaphylaxis 45 minutes after his dose of milk. I think he was just overtired with all of the travelling and hence had a reaction. We were advised to downdose and slowly work back up. We had a big wedding the following week, so I skipped Hamish's doses on the day of the wedding and the day after as being overtired can cause a reaction and so updosing was a bit slow. We flew back to Australia on Sunday and had a long 12 hour stop in Singapore so because we were travelling, doses were skipped again (as can't run the risk of reacting whilst on a plane). So, today was Hamish's first dose of milk again now that we are home and trying to get back into a "normal" routine. He had 15ml of milk and we have changed the dosing to 430pm with his evening meal. We are dosing in the evenings as I feel that will work best with our lifestyle. I work 45 minutes away from school and Hamish's dad works away from home every second week. It is safer to give the dose early evening when we are home from school/swimming lessons and not rushing around and can ensure that Hamish has his 90 minute rest time. It also means that I'm not relying on his teachers to observe for any reactions after his dose and me being far away from the school if I am working should anything happen.
I will continue to update our journey on this page now that we are home and back within reality! We had a great time in Atlanta. I honestly couldn't recommend the whole process enough and I keep saying it but I truly hope this becomes readily available to everyone with allergies. I am still in shock at how well and uneventful the process went and very very grateful. I felt so much more confident flying back home than I did when we left here.
I will also post some photos from Atlanta soon.

13/09/2024

Yesterday was Hamish's last day in Clinic.

It was a bit of an emotional day to think of how far he has came in the last 5 weeks. Starting from 1 drop of milk diluted in 100ml of water and having 0.5ml of that solution to now being able to drink 20ml of milk a day and have some bits of cake.

We have an ongoing process to follow which has variables to consider so we still have to use our judgement along with the plan but to know that Hamish is so much safer is a huge relief.

I cannot believe that he has went through this process with no reactions. That has probably been the biggest shock to me and the big jump up in dosing that he has managed this week. Was so great to see his excitement choosing a cake for his food challenge. Something so simple that is just taken for granted by the rest of us who don't have food allergies.

I cannot recommend or thank Dr Agrawal of Jacob enough and I hope they know how much of an impact they have on their patients and families lives. I feel like a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I will do a post all about the clinic and the process and I am absolutely happy to help anyone else who wants to go. This is something that I hope becomes more readily available to families worldwide.

To end the day, Hamish was gifted the most amazing remote control car and he scored himself a bonus gift of a squishmellow!!! As if being given some allergy freedom wasn't enough of a gift!

We are very sad to be leaving here tomorrow. We have loved every minute of being in Atlanta. The scenery is stunning, the people have been so welcoming and friendly, we have filled our days by the pool, watching and feeding the squirrels and deer in the garden and exploring the tourist attractions. Hamish has also made himself a friend at the pool that he is hoping to keep in touch with.