Well, if you live with food allergies, you simply get used to the disappointments that come with the diagnosis, the day-to-day management and the annual testing that usually yields much of the same--"I am sorry, but you are still allergic to" this or that. As our kids have gotten older, the doctors have given us less and less hope that our kids will outgrow their allergies. Well, here is our good news:
Each of our three children had one or more food challenges in the last few weeks (i.e., spending 4 hours at the allergist's office eating increasing amounts of the food being tested and waiting to see if their is a reaction). Their bloodwork numbers to certain foods were in range that made the doctor comfortable for us to give them a try. We had already experienced 2 unsuccessful food challenges several years ago when our oldest started to react 3 hours and 40 minutes into the challenge, so I was not getting my hopes up.
First, there was Emma, our 5 year old. Now, Emma is crazy allergic to dairy and egg, including airborne egg reactions. But, unlike our older two, she had always tested negative to peanut and tree nuts. Her older sister started out testing negative, but that changed over time and by 4 years old (after several mystery reactions involving significant hives and breathing restriction), she was diagnosed with a peanut, tree nut and seed allergy. So, the fact that Emma was still negative, although encouraging, was not a slam dunk by any stretch. This combined with the fact that our doc recently had 2 or 3 patients who had also tested negative to peanut end up having an anaphylactic reaction when they tried it. Anyway, after 4 hours of eating peanut butter and bracing myself the whole time--NADA! Not only is she fine with it, but the doc wants her to eat it at least once per week to help maintain her non-allergic status. So, although her dairy and egg are still incredibly challenging to manage, we are so excited that we can slip her some peanut butter on the side (obviously without her allergic siblings anywhere nearby) and, of course, her world is now open to all of those products with nut warnings (as long as they don't have egg/dairy, of course)!
Next, our oldest, who started out allergic to 13--yes, 13 foods (peanut, tree nuts, milk, sesame, flax, egg (outgrew @ age 9), wheat (outgrew @ age 5), oat (outgrew @ age 5), raspberries (outgrew @ age 5), sunflower (age 10), mustard (age 10), barley (age 10), peas (don't recall) had successful food challenges to mustard, sunflower seed and barley! Although these may not seem like game changers—they really open up a lot of things for us (mustard is in so many sauces, dressings, certain canned beans, tons of recipes, and just being able to use it as a condiment; sunflower butter--great substiute for peanut butter and a great way to avoid eating so much soy, which has been too much of a staple for us over the years; and barley, which is in almost every bread and pretzel product known to man (and woman).
Finally, Kori, who has been our least allergic in terms of number of foods to avoid (peanut, tree nuts and seeds), had a successful sunflower seed challenge. It was quite funny--we food challenged all three kids to sunflower seed at one time, a first for our allergist’s office--which had never had 3 patients in one food challenge session. And, they all passed! I ran home and made some homemade sunflower butter and roasted sunflower seeds for them. Really tasty (you ask why not give them store bought sunflower butter—well, Max and Kori are allergic to flax seed and there is a risk of cross contamination because another variety has flax seed in it and it is run on the same line; I am waiting for Trader Joe’s to get back to me on whether this is an issue on their brand; may be the same brand under private label, though)!
So, although we still have a number of them left, and they are very serious, we are thrilled to add these ingredients into our diet. Of course, as if life wasn't already confusing, now they have very different allergies, making things like packing lunches, cooking and preparing for birthday parties a little more tricky. I feel strongly that, other than family meals, which are always safe for everyone, that they should be able to eat foods that work for them even if their siblings cannot (of course, not if they are airborne!). They are getting older and they are already so limited in what they can eat. I take extra special care during food prep to avoid cross contamination. Although the job just got harder in many ways (hard to believe that fewer food allergies can be more challenging than more food allergies), I welcome the challenge!
I hope that our recent successes will give you hope for similar successes for you and/or your kids!
If you ever need help working through your family's allergy struggles, please be in touch through my contact page.
I have just found your page and am enjoying it. Thanks. We have a 5 year old who is severely allergic to a long list of food. I had one caution to add to your post that may not be common knowledge to most people. Our son is allergic to both peanut and sesame (among other things). He is NOT allergic to sunflower seeds. However, many commercially roasted sunflower seeds are roasted with a little bit of oil, often to make the salt stick, if there is salt. Much of this roasting is done in Asia. The common oil used is PEANUT OIL, because of the high burn temperature. Commercial sunflower seeds are sometimes contaminated with peanut oil and in rare cases sesame oil. If you have a child allergic to peanuts, best to avoid commercial sunflower seeds. There is no requirement for them to declare small amounts of oil used in roasting.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Jack. It sounds like we have similar allergy challenges. With the food labeling laws, I am surprised to hear that there is not such a requirement. I will look into this further, but my understanding is that if they are roasted in peanut oil (an actual ingredient as opposed to made in the same facility), that they would have to declare it. Of course, the labels are only as good as the companies that manufacture the product, so there are never guarantees. Thanks for posting and I will let you know if I find anything more about this.
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