BeeSunnyRN

Try school nursing. If you really are smart & can think on your feet it would be great. It doesn't pay as well due to all the breaks but if you look at the pay per hour it's not that bad. I am latex allergic, never thought about doing pedi but I love it. It's like my own little ER - you never know what is going to walk in from kids, staff, and even school visitors. It's great. No lifting to speak of either just in case the RA returns. Now is the time to be applying for next school year. You might try to substitute if you don't get on right away. In my area they try to fill the vacancies by March so hurry & good luck! bk

Gidgette, You have to learn what you react to and what you are ok with. Some of us can take a little exposure to an allergen but you never know when the 'big one' is going to hit & you bite the old ET-tube. My best advice, in addition to Dragon-nurse's advice, is to seek out a Dr. you are comfortable with. My original allergist just wanted to write a note stating I must avoid all latex/rubber. This is not anymore possible to do in a hospital or clinic setting than it is to do in real life. I tried to tell him that was too restrictive and he refused to see me again. I had to get a friend Doc to write that I needed to be able to control and limit my exposure to allergens so that I could continue to work. Thank God that friend was willing to stick his liability out there and write that note for accommodations otherwise I'd have been up a creek in a rubber row boat. Look for alternative ways to use the products around you. Can you wear a t-shirt or something that comes between you & the elastic? Is that even something you can tolerate? If you're having respiratory symptoms that may not be enough because chances are it is still too close to your airway. Speak up and ask for alternative products to be stocked for your safety. It is the law that an employer must make reasonable accomodations. The sooner you start protecting yourself the more likely you are to be able to decrease your reactions. Take care, do your research and starting advocating for yourself, your patients, and your fellow co-workers because you KNOW you aren't the only one. stay safe, bk

Latex/Natural Rubber is pretty much EVERYWHERE in our society. both in and out of the hospital. So it is impossible to always avoid it. The best you can do is to limit your exposure. My allergist explained it this way - allergies are like a bucket. You can have a little of this, a little of that but once your bucket is full (of allergens) then it just takes a drop of something else to make it overflow. If I'm already reacting to something - say just dust or seasonal allergies - all relatively mild in my case and then I get a big wiff of tires/balloons/latex gloves/rubber stairwell treads or what ever - then I'm in big trouble fast. However if I'm not really reacting to anything at the time - pollen is down, no questionable foods, lotion or potion exposure recently - then I can take a quick walk past the auto dept. at Walmart or venture out to buy shoes without getting too close to the rubber soled athletic shoes in relative safety. Since none of us can completely avoid latex it is more a matter of limiting exposure which is why it is so important to know what you are being exposed to when inpatient. I can tell if I'm reactive & leave if I'm awake but strap me to a gurney, drug me and make me more vulnerable by illness or surgery - I'm more likely to have a reaction and less able to let you know that I'm having trouble. This is why we MUST take our patients and co-workers seriously when they tell us latex makes them a 'little itchy' or makes their mouth feel funny or whatever. I once reacted strongly to a TB test. Within 20 minutes I had huge welts at the injection site that later spread up my arm. By the time it was time to read the test 2-3 days later all was negative. With a little research we discovered the syringe had a latex plunger and had been drawn up in advance leaving the solution in contact with that plunger before it was given to me. Subsequent annual tests using a latex free syringe have all been without any problems. Just a little thing that no one really thought of at the time. moral here: EDUCATE and LIMIT exposure PRN

I was a child with a few (non-life-threatening) allergies and the standard hypo-allergic pillow was (maybe still is?) a latex pillow. I loved my latex pillows. Never have found anything as comfortable again! However while in nursing school I was given one of those questionaires and discovered that I was probably allergic to latex based on the fact that my mouth swelled when I ate kiwi, mango, or papaya. I stopped using my pillows and stopped latex gloves but no one mentioned that I could react just by being in a unit with others using the latex gloves. Exactly one year into my official nursing career I had a major reaction to being in a hospital surrounded by latex even though I never wore latex gloves. So although it was certainly bad timing, coming after graduation & after accumulating a lot of student loans... being diagnosed was probably the best thing that ever happened. I used to wake up in the middle of the night in a panic feeling like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I assumed it was the stress of nursing school. Come to find out it was my comfy latex pillows. If it wasn't for the latex questionaire and subsequent disposal of said comfy pillows, I probably would have died in my sleep & no one would have known why.

Dear Dragon, It is a most inconvenient allergy isn't it? I used to be part of a web site but kind of dropped off. I'll check out the one you reccomend. I don't know if you are anywhere near Fort Worth TX but I could tell you the name of a hospital that is semi-latex safe. There is at least a level of awareness. I was on the committee to make it safe a few years ago when first diagnosed. The hospital determined that with a number of latex allergic employees it was just about as cheap to go 'latex safe' as to pay all the workman's comp claims. It is impossible to be latex free but awareness is everything. However the last time I was there the awareness is slipping a little. Stairwells (with rubber treads) and elevators with rubber floor mats, not to mention the hand rail thingy on escalators are particularly hateful as once you are there, you are kind of stuck! What a horrible thing to experience during your grief at your mom's funeral! I am now a school nurse & can for the most part control my environment - I love it even though pedi was never my goal. It's like my own little ER as you never know what's going to walk through the door. take care & keep breathing!

OMG!! I hope to high heaven I am never in the facility that David PA-C is working in. In the past I have not repsonded to a latex Ig-A rast (I was told there are many who do not respond to the test), thankfully all my docs have taken me seriously enough not to provoke a true airway emergency just to be able to 'document' the veracity of my allergy. However, I do very silently have a decreased BP, O2 sat, and LOC when exposed to latex that is in my vicinity. Note - that is not contact and therefore really has very little to do with my underwear having any elastic. Please have the compassion to believe a patient who says they are latex allergic or sensitive - I'm not sure exactly what the difference is any way - the level of the previous mild reaction versus the next reaction which could be life-threatening? Not to mention that this protection could save you from a lawsuit which is probably a lot more expensive than the cost to take precautions.

With all respect to your anesthesia group, as a nurse and sometimes patient with a latex allergy I understand it is difficult to get a straight answer from some patients. I also understand how uncomfortable it can be to try to 'convince' care-givers that I really know what I'm allergic to. I do not react positively to blood allergy tests. However I do react to challenge tests. If I have one more care-giver tell me it will all be ok because they aren't going to touch me with the latex gloves I think I'll scream. I don't have a contact allergy. I have anaphylactic reactions to airborne latex particles that float around when the staff is using latex gloves anywhere near me. I do not have asthma, rarely wheeze, instead I tend to just have some minor itching around my nose, lips, as it progresses my tongue and ears itch. All the while my blood pressure and O2 sat. is getting lower and lower. It is hard for me to judge for myself during a reaction but I have also gotten to the point of having a decreased LOC. For obvious reasons I don't know if that happens each time. Your questions about underwear is valid as long as it is asked with respect. Personally, underwear can cause irritation to me if I'm hot, or the elastic is exposed. I try to buy the panties with covered elastic and such. I am more likely to react to things that I can smell such as athletic shoe stores or rubber tires in the auto dept. or bike stores. I just simply avoid all those areas as much as possible. Unfortunately most gyms are off limits to me with all the rubber mats, balls, and even handles on the equipment, I just start itching and feel SOB. The idea of checking a spina bifida web site is the best! Large numbers of children with spina bifida have latex allergies. There are many foods that are similar in the protein structure to latex. Not all of us react to the same foods but most people with latex allergies are reactive to the top offenders such as kiwi, advocado, & banana. People known to be allergic to these foods should be assumed to also have latex sensitivities until proved otherwise. As to the question about protein- any allergy is the bodie's reaction to a protein in a given substance so the doctor was partially correct. I'm not an expert but off the top of my head I'd guess there are proteins in both shellfish as well as iodine or people wouldn't have those allergies. Please understand this is a very scary allergy. One because natural rubber/latex is EVERYWHERE, two because my experience tells me there are a lot of misconceptions and that people don't always take me seriously or listen to what I tell them I have previously reacted to. A little compassion and a little listening (which I know is hard to have the time to do) as well as a lot of vigilance will go a long way towards reassuring your fellow staff members as well as your patients. be safe!