11/03/2022
Anaphylactic Shock can have catastrophic consequences.
Would you know how to administer an Adrenaline Auto-Injector if you had to?
Last week, with so much press and media attention around Natasha's Law, we were often reminded about the details that surfaced following Natasha's inquest in 2018. One such piece of information bothered me greatly, because it was so important and yet we'd had no idea about it at all.
Natasha's anaphylactic reaction to sesame seeds was so severe that it caused swelling of her airways. Her father injected her with two Epi-Pens in an attempt to reverse the allergic reaction. The first epi-pen was injected into her right outer thigh. But Natasha wasn't improving and she begged for the second Epi-Pen to be given which her father did, once again into her right outer thigh.
But it made no difference at all.
At Natasha's inquest, an Allergy Specialist was asked why in her opinion, the Epi-Pens had not worked. One of the reasons she gave, was that when the first Epi-Pen had been injected into Natasha's thigh, the adrenaline would have caused all the blood vessels in that area to constrict. Her allergic reaction was so severe that she required another dose of adrenaline to be administered quickly, but when injected into the same place as before, the adrenaline would not have been able to enter the blood vessels, it had nowhere to go. To counter this, she told the coroner that the second Epi-Pen injection should have been injected into her other leg - the opposite thigh. In all our GP and allergy clinic visits, in all our online research, we had never been given such information and yet it made perfect sense.
We are approaching medical professionals to get the latest guidance and will share when we hear from them.
