An Allergy Question SWH Added

Thimerosal has been removed from nearly all vaccines now; check with your pediatrician in case any shots that your child would get still have it as a preservative, and be sure that your child's records with the pediatrician clearly flag the allergy. It's in the allergist's records now, but that does not necessarily mean that the allergist informed the pediatrician's office of these allergies, so be certain that your pediatrician's office has the file flagged for the allergies; be assertive and don't assume that the ped. will have been told by the allergist.

If you look up "thimerosal controversy" on Wikipedia it has a good (and non-biased) summary about the whole "mercury in vaccines" stuff and the fact that today, virtually no vaccines now contain thimerosol. Some flu vaccines do contain it still, I think, but check with the doctor. There are several types of flu vaccines now so your child can get one without it, and it shouldn't be a big deal.

Regarding bacitracin, my husband has that allergy. It mostly means we just have to be sure to buy antibiotic creams etc. that do not contain it. In other words, no more Neosporin for him or for your child, and be sure to check labels--many if not most of the over the counter antibiotic creams and gels etc. for treating cuts contain bacitracin so you have to shop with some care. Again, be sure that the pediatrician AND the school nurse, Girl Scout leader, sports coach, etc. all know about this allergy-- you want to ensure that nobody, away from home, puts Neosporin or other bacitracin products on a cut. It's not a huge allergy to deal with since most bacitracin your kid would encounter is in ointments for cuts, but of course to be sure to mention if your daughter is ever hospitalized, and update your child's school and activity health forms to reflect both these allergies.

The post below is spot-on about the fact that mercury in food and thimerosal are different, so that's a good topic to bring up with your pediatrician. Your child might not have to avoid any foods at all.

Please post a SWH after you meet with the allergist, but in the meantime I did find this information from the CDC regarding thimerosal (ethyl mercury) & mercury. They are not the same compound, even though they share the element Mercury - the body responds to them differently.

"What is the difference between ethyl mercury and methylmercury?
When learning about thimerosal and mercury it is important to understand the difference between two different compounds that contain mercury: ethylmercury and methylmercury. They are totally different materials. Methylmercury is formed in the environment when mercury metal is present. If this material is found in the body, it is usually the result of eating some types of fish or other food. High amounts of methylmercury can harm the nervous system. This has been found in studies of some populations that have long-term exposure to methylmercury in foods at levels that are far higher than the U.S. population. In the United States, federal guidelines keep as much methylmercury as possible out of the environment and food, but over a lifetime, everyone is exposed to some methylmercury. Ethylmercury is formed when the body breaks down thimerosal. Low-level ethylmercury exposures from vaccines are very different from long-term methylmercury exposures because ethylmercury is broken down by the body differently and clears out of the blood more quickly."
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/patient-ed/conversations/...
(the link is primarily talking about mercury vs thimerosal in vaccines, but the info I copied above talks about the compounds outside of vaccine use.)

All the searches I did came up that Methyl mercury is what is found in food, not Ethyl mercury (thimerosal). Hope this helps a bit until your doctor can provide more information. I'm interested in learning what you find out! T. :)

I really don't bother the doc with questions like this. With a substance like these I would talk to the pharmacist. They can print out information on some of it. Otherwise you can google it and find out what foods can cause issues.

Your daughter might be a classic case of vaccine injury. You might want to check how high her levels of mercury is in her blood. If you followed up the regular vaccine schedule and she is allergic to thimerosal her body could not recover and showed all the side affects which you described in one of your earlier posts.

Please note that no vaccine is mercury free, maybe thimerosal free but all vaccines need some sort of mercury to get the full affect however it just has a different name.