Our Allergy Journey

(and why I now help parents like you)

Before allergies, life was busy - but beautifully ordinary.

Two nursery drop-offs.

Work deadlines.

Breastfeeding for eleven months. Weaning without issue.

She was a healthy, perfect baby.

We had no obvious allergies in the family.

No EpiPens in kitchen drawers.

No emergency plans stuck to the fridge.

When she developed a rash on holiday at nine months, I assumed it was heat rash. I wasn’t anxious. I wasn’t hypervigilant. I was just a mum on holiday.

The eczema diagnosis came first.

Then the appointments.

Then the creams.

Then the steroid ladder.

Then the water softener.

The cotton everything.

The night wakings.

The bleeding from scratching.

The exhaustion.

Night-time became the hardest part.

I would finally get both children to bed and hope for a few minutes of quiet… and then I’d hear it. The scratching. The rustling. The crying.

She would wake because she had scratched herself raw.

I’d change her pyjamas.

Change the bedding.

Reapply creams.

Try again.

My husband could sleep through it.

I couldn’t.

I became attuned to every sound.

Every shift in breathing.

It felt like my responsibility to stay half-awake all night, just in case.

And somewhere in that exhaustion, resentment crept in.

Toward the situation.

And then came the guilt for feeling resentful.

This wasn’t how I imagined motherhood.

I imagined messy play, laughter, the normal tiredness that comes with raising children - not prolonged sleepless nights because your child is uncomfortable in her own skin.

We tried everything.

Cold packs.

Wet compresses.

Oat baths.

Biological creams.

Four, five, six applications a day.

As a nurse, I thought I would cope better.

I didn’t.

When it’s your own child, objectivity disappears. If it were another mum, I could have calmly suggested options. When it was mine, I felt overwhelmed and ashamed that I didn’t “have it together.”

Then came the allergies.

Then viral-induced wheeze.

The full trio.

Then came the first anaphylactic reaction.

She was playing happily at a birthday party.

Ten minutes after eating, she was coughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.

I knew the word.

Anaphylaxis.

But knowing the word is different from knowing the moment.

- Is this severe enough?

- Is it time for the EpiPen?

- Am I overreacting?

Watching your child go from laughing to struggling to breathe in minutes changes something in you.

Each time we thought, “Surely this is it.”

Each time another layer of responsibility landed.

It felt like living under an avalanche of vigilance. Like something else could go wrong at any moment.

And slowly, without realising it, anxiety became my default state.

What gently snapped me out of it wasn’t a new cream or a new diagnosis.

It was my husband.

He stayed calm.

Detached.

Grounded.

And he pointed out that I was drowning in stress.

He was right.

In trying to protect her, I was disappearing.

I had become “allergy mum.”

I had lost the part of me that existed beyond eczema schedules and ingredient labels.

Through coaching and reflection, I began reconnecting with what mattered to me - not just as a mother, but as a person.

I started making time for myself.

Small things at first.

And I noticed something powerful:

When I filled my own cup, I had more strength.

More clarity.

More resilience.

When you’re overwhelmed, you’re reactive - running from fire to fire.

When you’re resourced, you can zoom out.

You can advocate.

You can research.

You can ask better questions.

You can make decisions from calm rather than fear.

I had realised something crucial:

You cannot eliminate risk.

But you can change your relationship with fear.

Allergies became something we manage - not something that defines us.

Anxiety still visits sometimes.

But it no longer runs our home.

Now, my daughter sees a mother who is calm in emergencies.

Prepared but not panicked.

Vigilant but not consumed.

And that matters.

Because our children don’t just inherit allergies.

They inherit our nervous systems.

I now help other parents do what I had to learn the hard way:

- You can be careful without being controlled by fear.

- You can be prepared without losing yourself.

- You can build resilience - in yourself and in your child.

- You can live fully, even with risk.

If I can move from overwhelm to grounded confidence, so can you.

And you don’t have to do it alone.

Feeling like you’re constantly on high alert as an allergy parent?

You’re not alone — and you don’t have to carry it all. Get support from someone who truly understands the mental load.

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