As she looked at her daughter Isla’s eczema covered skin and saw her discomfort, doting mum Ali Bastian knew that something wasn’t quite right. Despite Covid-19 restrictions stopping her from seeking reassurance from other parents, the former Hollyoaks star’s maternal instincts kicked in and she knew that something needed to be done.
“Isla had severe eczema at eight weeks and was covered head to toe. She was a very colicky, uncomfortable, baby. I was just like, ‘what’s happening to my child?’,” she tells OK!.
“But when the eczema really took flight, I knew that something wasn’t right. I had a Zoom dermatologist appointment and looking at her on Zoom, he said ‘I think this is an early indicator of food allergies that you should go and see an allergist.’”
Actress Ali Bastian and her daughter Isla, who is allergic to peanuts, milk, egg, sesame, cashews and pistachios
(Image: BLUE PINEAPPLE PICTURES)
As a result, when Isla was just four months old, the little one underwent tests which showed that she was positively allergic to peanuts, milk and egg. With an explanation for her daughter’s symptoms, Ali, 42, began early weaning, though it wasn’t smooth sailing to begin with.
“We were encouraged to do early weaning with her and when we started the weaning journey, other allergies started showing up. Unfortunately she had a very severe reaction to wheat,” she says.
“I was EpiPen trained straight away, which was pretty terrifying. I remember being in hospital and being taught how to use an EpiPen and going into the street with wide eyes, thinking ‘what on earth am I going to do? How do I cope with this?’ I had no experience of it.”
However, as they continued on with their weaning journey, another incident left Ali “terrified” after Isla was rushed to hospital after experiencing a “major reaction to wheat” when she was five months old.
Ali was taught how to use an EpiPen because of her daughter’s allergies
(Image: BLUE PINEAPPLE PICTURES)
“Suddenly I had a child who was profusely vomiting to the point of systemic shutdown. She was blue and floppy. We were rushed into hospital in an ambulance,” Ali recalls.
“The treatment for that is IV fluids. But when it’s a baby with those symptoms, they also assume it might be sepsis, so she was being treated for sepsis too. Luckily she did bounce back quite quickly from that. But it was absolutely terrifying.”
Then just a week later, Isla unfortunately had another reaction which occurred two hours after eating and it was discovered that she was allergic to sesame too.
Four years later, Isla has “grown out” of her wheat allergy, though is still allergic to peanuts, milk, egg, sesame, cashews and pistachios. With her daughter’s allergies occurring in lots of day-to-day dishes, Ali has opened up about the anxiety that can occur as a result of constantly ensuring that food is safe to eat.
Ali is raising awareness of the realities that families dealing with allergies face
(Image: BLUE PINEAPPLE PICTURES)
“I know how fraught with anxiety life is as an allergy parent, so I don’t want to feed people’s anxieties when a lot of the work as an allergy parent is about building confidence and finding ways that you can continue to enjoy a rich social life and have that for your child. But it can be really difficult,” she says.
“As a parent, you’re often in a state of real hypervigilance that can be quite exhausting and can lead to its own sort of burn out.”
She adds: “We’ve only been to one wedding and it was the first time she’d met some of her family and she loved it. We don’t do Christmas with everybody anymore.”
Since discovering Isla’s allergies, Ali has been doing oral desensitisation, which is a treatment that involves giving very small amounts of food that Isla is allergic to and gradually increasing the amount given – and it’s going well.
She explains, “It’s not an easy road, but it’s working really well for her. It was very frightening at the beginning and continues to be.”
Given the toll that looking out for allergies takes on a daily basis, for Ali it’s all about celebrating the little wins and building up the confidence to do ‘normal’ activities that other families may take for granted.
Ali and her family celebrate the small things, such as being able to go to cafes together
(Image: BLUE PINEAPPLE PICTURES)
“The first time I took her to an allergy-friendly cafe that we knew was a safe space for us I cried. I got to take my little girl out for lunch,” she explains. “When you do these things and it works out, you really do celebrate the wins.”
The same goes for heading on a plane. Having travelled to Ireland together as a family in the past, Ali has her sights set on heading further afield this year too.
“We’ve been to Ireland and when we fly I’ve got my routine where I wipe down the area and bring all her own food. We haven’t gone any further afield. I’d be lying if I said that the allergy wasn’t to do with that,” says Ali. “I’d really like to go somewhere this summer. I want to dip her little toes in the ocean. I always dreamed of that, but I get quite emotional talking about it.”
Looking forward, Ali hopes that more will be done around social inclusion for children with allergies and is on a mission to help other allergy families grow in confidence when it comes to navigating the world.
“It’s making it known so that we can have more conversations about it, so the allergy families feel less alone,” she tells us.
“But also, I hope that other families that don’t know about allergies, will have a little more insight into what a family might be going through and making changes. It makes such a huge difference.”
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