Last Friday our daughter received her hep A vaccine at her 2 year checkup. She was acting fine at the appt (well upset because she has learned to fear the dr). She got her shot around 4:45PM and we went out to eat after - she acted fine at the restaurant, then we went home did bedtime routine and she went down without a fuss. We did notice a tiny bit of swelling under her left eye when putter her to bed. We regretfully didn't think much of it as she is always getting little bumps and scrapes and also seems to have very sensitive skin.

Around 11:20 or so my wife went in to check on her as she was upset and not sleeping. Her face was swollen up huge mainly on the left side - her left eye was swollen shut, her left cheek was huge, lips were protruding over an inch from her face. I threw some jeans and a shirt on, my wife gave her 3.5mls of Benadryl and we rushed her to the ER - we live a good 20+ min away. She was immediately given epinephrin, steroids, and fomadatine. After an hour or so there was no improvement and they gave her another dose of epinephrine, and more Benadryl. Over the next 4 hours her face swelling gradually decreased. We left after 5 total hours the last 4 just being monitored. She seemed "fine" the entire time (very upset after IV and nurse/doctor interactions) she was seemingly breathing fine - her O2 was fine.

My wife and I have been going through the day of and the days leading up to this event - we have not been able to think of any new foods or potential allergens that may have caused this. We can't say with 100% certainty it was from the hep A vaccine but we are fairly confident it was a reaction from it. She did play with balloons a day prior to this happening as it was her birthday - but she has played with balloons a handful of times before with no reaction. She also had some coconut from a ice cream bar I was eating that night before bed - but again she has had coconut at least two other times with no issue.

We now have an epipen at home, and she is taking prednisone, fomadotine, and benedrly for another couple days. She has been acting pretty much normal minus a littlr tiredness likely from the antihistamine.

We will be seeing an allergist ASAP. My wife is now sleeping in her room that way it is easy to monitor her throughout the night.

I guess I am just looking for other parents that have been through something similar and if you have any advice. Clearly we are very worried this will happen again. If it was caused by the vaccine I am hoping that it was a one and done type event - but we don't know for sure. Had my wife not gone in there and let her cry a bit longer I am fearful this could have become even more life threatening than it already was.

Thanks for any input/advice.

Tough to say.  Let the allergist guide you.  I'm not 100% sure they can test everything,  but a food challenge with coconut in the office may be prudent.

Sorry to hear this. I have not seen this reaction personally.

Make sure to find out everything that was administered that day. Brand of every shot, lot numbers, doses.  The allergist may need that info to help narrow down possible causes.

Being exposed previously doesn't mean not allergic or won't become allergic. In fact, that's how allergies start. Your body is exposed to an antigen and makes antibodies. In the process of making antibodies you also make different memory cells that will be ready to react quickly the next time that antigen is encountered. When you over-react to the antigen we call it an allergy. When you over-react to the point of respiratory emergency we call it anaphylaxis.  If it's the first time ever being exposed and you have life threatening emergency it's called anaphylactoid.

When I search for med info I add NIH to the search bar. It will bring up medical research papers on the topics. I did a quick search and haven't found anything like this from Hep A vax (yet). Good luck!