Article on Food Allergies in the Wall Street Journal

When Is Your Kid's Food Allergy Really a Food Allergy? - WSJ.com

online.wsj.com

An estimated 12 million Americans, including four million children, have food allergies—up 18% from 1997. But many kids whose food allergies were diagnosed on the basis of blood or skin tests alone may not be truly allergic, experts say.

I found this article on Wall Street Journal very interesting. Maybe my son can really eat most of the foods he is allergic too. What do you think?

My Tongue Hurts

Nathan was eating dinner at home and suddenly he started crying and saying his tongue hurt. My first thought is that his tongue is swelling up and he is having an allergic reaction. I went through everything he ate in my head thinking what could it be. When he finally calmed down enough to talk, we found out that he actually bit his tongue. What a relief.

May contain.....

I was shopping today and as always looking for new foods Nathan can eat at the regular grocery store. His school was asking for snacks so I was looking for items he could eat. While I was in the cereal isle I noticed the cinnamon Chex cereal, he loves cinnamon and the box said "gluten free" so I knew it was wheat free so I picked up the box and started reading ingredients. Nothing was in there that he was allergic too and I was excited until I read the bold print stating that it may contain milk. What??? What do they mean may contain?? Either it has milk or it doesn't, what is may contain crap?? I guess they are really trying to cover their butts if milk residue from their other cereals get into this cereal.

I still bought it, no milk in the ingredients, but when I gave it to Nathan the first time I watched him to see if he showed any signs of a reaction, he didn't.

Happy New Year 2010

Welcome 2010.

When thinking of a new year and resolutions my first thought was this is the year when Nathan will be able to eat wheat. I don't think he needs to avoid wheat even if the numbers say it, I just need to find a Doctor to confirm this. I am also hoping that since he will be 4 years old this coming summer that he will be growing out of these allergies. I am over them.

Speaking of Doctors, I have a new allergist in the area we are going to try.

I am planning on expanding the allergy group, we now have a great website up and running at the end of the last year.

Hoping 2010 is a great year for everyone.

Coming home from Florida

Today we are flew home from Florida, this time our trip was a little different. The airport security was much tighter, they made me open our bags so they could look at them and they wanted to scan the nebulizer over with a special machine to be sure it wasn't a bomb.

Then when we got on to our seats on the plane a flight attendent came and asked if there was someone in these seats who had a peanut allergy. We told her "yes", it was Nathan. She then asked questions about the smell again, we told he we didn't know for sure. She said well if we know of a peanut allergy we don't allow peanuts in the three rows before or after us. I said we mostly need to make sure that it isn't in the food. Then she said she would bring Nathan some pretzels, I said no, he was allergic to those too. Then she asked the same question I get all the time....."What can he eat?" I told her we had snacks for him and she said "ok, what about a banana or apple," I said "sure that would be fine too."

This flight didn't go as well as the flight to Florida, Nathan was tired and wanted to get home so he was a little cranky and very restless, he didn't want to sit in his seat or wear his seat belt. We ended walking to the bathroom twice to waste time.

We had to switch planes so that tired him out since we had a short lay over and pretty much ran from one plane to the next.

We got home and made him a late dinner, it is New Years Eve so we were not worried about bedtime.

Leaving on a airplane

Today we are leaving on a plane for Florida for a few days to visit family. I called Delta airlines a week ago to tell them that my son will be flying and he has a peanut allergy. They asked me questions about how severe his allergy was and if the "smell" would bother him? I told him I that his allergy is more that he can't eat the food, but then again I don't know. He has never been in a closed airplanes with dozens of people eating peanuts.

I thought for sure that security would stop and check my purse and bags because I had the Epi-pen on me but they never even looked. It was liquid and had a needle, also we had Nathan's luggage as a carry on and we put the nebulizer in the carry-on and that is a heavy machine, again they never looked or questioned it.

The plane ride was good, he was excited. He liked to look out the window and was pretty good. He played and ate his snacks. He ate a lot of snacks. I think because of his tubes in his ears, he never had a problem with his ears bothering him at all.

By the time we landed and had our luggage it was late and Nathan was hungry. We were able to find a Wendy's open and he ate a plain burger with pickles and ketchup and fries, he ate a lot.

Santa and Starbucks

Every year we usually go see Santa at my work but this year Nathan was sick so I took him to the mall Santa. He did really well, in fact he was so talkative that I told Nathan he had to say good-bye to Santa and that we were leaving.

While we were at the mall I stopped at Starbucks to get a coffee. Nathan wanted something. I thought about getting him a hot chocolate because I know they have soy milk, now I just need to know what was in the chocolate.

When I ordered, I asked the lady about the milk in the chocolate she said she "didn't think so" so she asked another employee and they said they "didn't think so". I told her that Nathan was allergic and I needed to know for sure so she went and got one of the bags that the chocolate syrup came in and she read the ingredients over with me. No milk. I was so happy, Nathan could have a drink from Starbucks. He liked it and sipped it. He would say "momma this is yummy". Then after drinking it for a little bit he spilled the entire cup on the carpet of the Hallmark store. I guess I didn't need to worry about him drinking too much. No reactions either.