Tracking the cause

So, what caused William’s reaction?

William had a grilled cheese sandwich on multigrain bread, a few French fries, and some packaged, ready-to-eat grapes for lunch the day that he had his first serious reaction. Of these things, the only one that he hadn’t had before at that particular restaurant was the grapes, so that was where I suspected the problem lay.

The doctor whom we saw the day of the reaction said that his reaction indicated a food allergy and that, considering what he’d eaten, she strongly suspected a food preservative was the culprit.

The following morning I phoned the restaurant and talked to the manager. He was able to tell me who distributed the grapes and gave me that company’s contact information.

When I phoned the distributor, I discovered that the grapes were washed with potable tap water, then packaged. When I pushed a bit further, saying that I’d narrowed the source of the reaction down to the grapes, the representative with whom I spoke said, after a bit of thought, that all grapes were sprayed with sulphur dioxide prior to packaging and distribution.

A brief Internet search revealed that sulphites are one of the nine most common causes of serious food reactions in Canada. I was fairly certain, thus, that sulphur dioxide was the culprit, especially considering several cases of gastrointestinal distress that William had experienced earlier that month.

At the moment, William has only had one serious and three mild allergic reactions to food since the initial serious one. All have been to foods containing sulphites, particularly sulphur dioxide. We have an appointment to see a paediatric allergy specialist November 8, 2012, so we'll see whether we get a definitive diagnosis at that time. In the meantime, we're avoiding all sources of sulphites in an attempt to prevent further reactions.