In Reply to: Peanut Allergy posted by Kevin on Monday, 26. July 2004 at 08:42 Bali Time:
in Bali with my 3 yr old who also suffers a peanut allergy. We were very concerned before going but had no trouble at all. As yet, Bailey has not had an anaphylactic reaction as we have completely avoided peanut products successfully so far, but she produced a 13x18 welt when tested, so her allergy is significant. Does your son react to the smell of peanuts, or just if he ingests or touches them? Our daughter has not reacted to the smell of peanuts at home or over there.
Firstly, obviously carrying the epi pens (we took 4 just in case), Claratyne, etc is important, obviously, and to carry it on the plane you may need a letter from the doctor. We weren't stopped when our bags were x-rayed, but were armed with it & now carry it in our daughter's medicine bag. (Sorry, I'm assuming here you haven't travelled with your son since he was diagnosed, probably incorrect but I may as well give you the full story!).
Via this forum we were provided with the following sentence, but I think it says 'daughter', which you'll have to change to 'son', Badak Belig should be able to help with this.
"Annaku tidak bisa makan kacang karena nanti bisa masuk rumah sakit"
We took several copies of this sentence, laminated, and barely used it at all. The literacy level in Bali is very high so probably no need to try and get your tongue around the pronunciation.
As our daughter is only 3 she wasn't keen on the Indonesian food anyway, and we were able to get fish & chips, steamed rice, pizza, hamburgers, etc everywhere we went (often in Indonesian-style restaurants & warungs).To be honest, I was still half expecting her to get traces of peanuts in something due to the prevelant use of peanut sauces etc, but she showed no signs at all of having been exposed to peanuts during our 3 week stay.
I'm not aware of any peanut-free restaurants over there. Where will you be staying & for how long? I may be able to give you a list of places that we safely ate at. When I posted a similar question to yours I was shot down a little by people who felt it was too dangerous to go, but I actually took the advice of our specialist at Westmeade Childrens Hospital over the advise of the forumites & went.
Let me know if you want to know anything else.