Adventures of an Allergist Mommy

I had an excellent time talking to my colleague, Dr. Phil Boucher, about the topic of Food Allergy Prevention. The podcast episode is live now, just in time for Asthma and Allergy Awareness month! 🎙️ If you haven't already subscribed to his podcast (Raising Good Parents), please take a listen. I think you'll find it both educational and enjoyable. ⠀ 🔗 Here's the link: https://drphilboucher.libsyn.com/139-food-allergy-prevention-with-allergistmommy-dr-sakina-bajowala ⠀

Dear Food Allergy Families, Please consider participating in the following study intended to explore the psychosocial coping needs of families with food allergy. As anyone who is living with food allergies understands, the psychological impacts of living with a potentially life-threatening condition are incredibly important, but sadly, often given short shrift in the context of limited time available during healthcare maintenance visits. Participating in this study is an opportunity to contribute to our knowledge base about the strategies families utilize to cope with the diagnosis. Thank you! -AllergistMommy ____________________________________________________ We want to invite you to participate in an exciting study researchers from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine are conducting to explore the thoughts, emotions, and coping strategies individuals and families have and use as they manage food allergies. Led by Ruchi Gupta, MD, MPH, the goal of this r...

It's that time again... Back to School! I, for one, relish the newly found silence in my home in the afternoon. I am also happy in the confidence that my boys are learning and playing and enjoying school again. I like knowing that the sweltering days of summer will soon transition into pleasant autumn evenings. However, I know that back to school season brings on very different emotions for parents of children with life-threatening food allergies. These feelings range from fear and anxiety at being separated from a child with medical needs, to frustration with the necessary mounds of paperwork that constitute school health forms, and apprehension about what some might term "the little things": Will my child have someone to sit with at lunch? What if someone at the middle school starts a food fight, and throws a PB& J? How will my 5 year old handle it, when at the end of a long day of kindergarten, a classmate shares cupcakes with everyone as a birthday treat (eve...

If your Halloween ended up like hours, a short time spent trick or tricking resulted in a ridiculous quantity of candy. Luckily for me, the risk of finding shellfish in my boys' candy stash is exceedingly low. The same sense of relief does not extend to the families of kids with other food allergies, such as milk, egg, peanut or tree nuts. So, what's a candy-overloaded family to do? Here are a few ideas: 1. Let mom and dad eat it. Just kidding. Not really. :-/ 2. Invite the "Switch Witch" over for a visit! She takes the candy, and leaves a cool toy in its place! 3. Send your candy to our troops serving abroad! Your donated candy will be included in care packages. Operation Gratitude does a great job: http://opgrat.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/halloween-candy-for-the-troops/ 4. Ask your local dentist or allergist about Halloween candy buy-backs! Maybe your kids will make a few bucks... see below for a picture of a few of my patients visiting their dentist during a...

As a mother of 2 boys, I sometimes feel outnumbered. Therefore, I was delighted to be invited by the local Daisy Scouts to a meeting which focused on being kind and considerate. Using the topic of food allergy as an example, we were able to address the issues of safety, inclusion/exclusion, bullying, how to be a good friend, and more. The girls offered up a whole host of ideas about how to celebrate special events without being food-centric, just in time for Valentine's Day! In this one group of Daisy Scouts, there were allergies to milk, egg, peanuts, tree nuts and fish! It was lovely to see the girls talk about how they pack special lunches so they can sit with their food-allergic friends and how they don't ever share food. One adorable little one demonstrated, arms outstretched, how she would come between a bully and her food-allergic pal! We did a drill of how to call for help if a friend is experiencing an allergic reaction, and familiarized ourselves with autoinjectabl...

A new treatment option for peanut allergy is currently being studied in Chicago! This treatment modality is commonly referred to as the "peanut patch", and aims to induce tolerance to peanut protein by delivering small amounts of peanut allergen to the immune system through the skin. This is similar in concept to oral and sublingual immunotherapy for foods. However, in the case of the patch, the mode of delivery is hoped to result in fewer reactions during treatment, as the allergen will not be ingested. It is certainly an interesting development, which may hold promise in the treatment of food allergy. This study is recruiting children as young as age 6 years, so it may be an option for those children who are not old enough to qualify for the Food Allergy Herbal Formula study. Please read the memorandum below for further details: -------------------------------------------------------------------- ...I would like to share with you the exciting new peanut allerg...

UPDATE: The post you see below was deleted/censored from the comments section by "The Doctors" website. Attempts to repost have also been met with deletion, and there has not been any response from the producer of the program, Jay McGraw.  Recently the Program "The Doctors" aired a segment advising their viewers to tell a "little white lie" and fake a butter allergy when eating out to avoid the ~120 calories from butter added to vegetables and other prepared items. Read it here:  http://thedoctorstv.com/main/show_synopsis/1012?section=synopsis As a food-allergic individual, and physician for hundreds of allergic patients, my jaw dropped at the irresponsibility of this suggestion. Read my response to them below, and tell me... what are your thoughts about their recommendation to fake a food allergy? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As a practicing board-certified allergist, m...

I've recently started offering oral immunotherapy for foods in my practice. I debated with myself for almost a year before implementing protocols for this therapy, because it was incredibly important to have strict and detailed procedures in place, given the serious risks associated with food challenges in highly sensitive individuals. I take food allergy extremely seriously, and it isn't something one "dabbles in". So, it was beyond gratifying to have the following conversation with a patient a few weeks ago: Me: "You're doing really well with advancements in dosing. If we keep moving along at this pace, pretty soon, you'll be dosing with wheat bread instead of capsules!" Patient: "Awesome..." Me: "Don't get too excited. It is going to start with a tiny little morsel of bread, not a sandwich!" Patient: "You have no idea. I am going to glorify that little morsel! I have been waiting for this for such a long time....

Great news for Illinois Food Allergy Families! Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago is currently enrolling volunteers for a Phase 2 clinical trial of Food Allergy Herbal Formula-2 (FAHF-2). Please see my earlier blog post for details on this exciting therapeutic option. In order to qualify, you must be: 12-24 years old Allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, fish or shellfish The study will take ~9 months, and will involve skin prick testing, blood draw, oral food challenge, and treatment with a pill form of Chinese herbs. If you are interested in participating, please call:1-888-573-1833 or email: allergystudy@childrensmemorial.org

Thanks to the Mothers of Children Having Allergies group for passing on the important information below! ----------------------------------------------------- With the generous support of the Food Allergy Initiative-Chicago there is now a food allergy-specific learning opportunity for school nurses on-line:   http://cmhdotnet.webitects. com/ce/online/article.aspx? articleID=238   When completed the participant will receive 0.5 INA contact hour for continuing education.     Please share this information with your favorite school nurse.  :-)   --------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this era of budget cuts and staffing shortages in our schools (especially when it comes to nurses), how wonderful to have easily accessible resources for our school nurses to educate themselves (and earn continuing education credit, to boot) on how to keep children safe! Bravo to the Food Allergy Initiative!...

Many thanks to Illinois House Representatives Chris Nybo (R) and John D'Amico (D)  for sponsoring HB3294, the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act, on 02/24/2011. Click here for details regarding this bill: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3294&GAID=11&DocTypeID=HB&LegId=60664&SessionID=84&GA=97 Synopsis: " Provides that the purpose of the Act is to allow schools to have access to life-saving emergency epinephrine auto-injectors if and when a student has an anaphylaxis reaction and to allow the school to have personnel trained to administer an emergency epinephrine auto-injector. Provides that a school district may provide emergency epinephrine auto-injectors to trained personnel, and trained personnel may utilize those epinephrine auto-injectors to provide emergency medical. Provides that each public and private elementary and secondary school in the State may make emergency epinephrine auto-injectors and trained p...

Thanks to the Mothers of Children Having Allergies (MOCHA) group for the following update! Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), in conjunction with the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), has released the Guidelines for Managing Life-Threatening Food Allergies in Illinois Schools. According to State Law, each local school board is required to have a policy based on these guidelines in place by Januray 2011- a sample policy based on these guidelines will be made available to all school districts in August. With any luck, the school boards will simply adopt the recommended sample policy- this is the expectation. The guidelines and associated forms are available online at: http://www.isbe.net/nutrition/htmls/food_allergy_guidelines.htm The sample policy will be available to member school districts and to any non-member school district that requests a copy. Even if you don't live in Illinois, this can be an excellent starting point as your food-allergic child p...

A parent of 2 food-allergic kiddo's shared an interesting tidbit with me the other day, of which I was not previously aware. If your child has a history of anaphylaxis to a food allergen, he/she may be a candidate for a 504 plan, which creates a specific plan outlining the accommodations that may be needed in the school setting to ensure that the student with a disability (in this case, severe food allergy) is not excluded from the full educational resources available to other children due to his/her disability. From the Department of Education website: Section 504 is a federal law designed to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities in programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Section 504 provides: "No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States . . . shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be s...

With the awareness of food allergies increasing, there is expanded interest in the various methods of diagnosing food allergy. Of course, the skin test vs. blood test debate is ongoing. (I have more trust in the skin test, in case you're wondering.) There are also plenty of proponents of what I call "weird science". These are unproven methods that might make someone feel like they're getting an answer (and are certainly enriching the practitioner), but do very little to diagnose actual food hypersensitivity and, more often than not, lead to unnecessarily restrictive diets. However, there's decidedly less discussion about what is considered the most definitive way to diagnose food allergy- the oral food challenge. A food challenge is a test that involves giving a patient incrementally larger doses of a specific food by mouth over a period of time, all the while monitoring the patient for signs and symptoms of an allergic reaction. Because the risk of an acute ...

Warning: This post will be controversial. I have seen too many instances of terrified parents falsely believing that being in the same room as a peanut is going to kill their child. I have heard too much about 10 year old children being kept home from birthday parties, families being kicked off planes for requesting that peanuts not be served to anyone on board, of people demanding that high schools be peanut-free. I feel that something needs to be said. The bottom line is this: there comes a time when we need to sit down and come to terms with the actual risk posed by inhalant exposure of peanut allergen vs. the perceived risk. I do not need a double-blind placebo-controlled trial to tell me that the perceived risk of anaphylaxis to inhaled peanut protein far, and I mean FAR, outweighs the actual risk. The majority of parents whose children have experienced food-related anaphylaxis are understandably traumatized by the event, and would go to the ends of the earth to prevent a repea...

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal ( Is Your Kid Truly Allergic? Tests Add to Food Confusion) recently highlighted the inherent problems with over-calling food allergy in children on the basis of serum IgE testing. I was impressed with the article, and encourage parents of allergic children to read it: http://tinyurl.com/yb5fw5s This is an issue that most allergists run into on a fairly frequent basis- a parent walks into the office with bloodwork ordered by another physician. Tests returned as "positive" for multiple foods, so for the past 3 months, parents have restricted all these foods (generally there's always something that's a pain in the butt to eliminate, like soy or wheat). Now we have a child who is still as symptomatic as ever, and cranky to boot. When I tell the parents that their child in all likelihood is not allergic to all of the eliminated foods, the reactions are a mixture of relief and annoyance: "That's great news, but why di...

There's something about cooking with your kids which makes the holidays feel more holidaylicious. And just like all kids, mine are enamoured of the kitchen (especially since Disney's "Ratatouille"). Used to be, if you wanted to bake an allergy-friendly holiday dessert, you had to pull out a cookbook, make substitutions, and hope for the best. Not my style. Although I love it when other people slave away all day in the kitchen, I'm not really a "from scratch" kind of gal. So, you can imagine my delight when a patient's mother introduced me to Cherrybrook Kitchen ( http://www.cherrybrookkitchen.com ), which has created a line of dairy, egg, and peanut-free mixes for cookies, cakes, brownies, pancakes, and more. (Frostings, too!) They're now even offering wheat and gluten free items. Best of all, the result is something even someone without allergies would like to eat... Thanks, Cherrybrook! Now I can make goodies for my son's class with...

Halloween is an exciting time for children... costume parties, silly music, bags and bags of CANDY... Yep. It's the candy part that gets our undies all in a knot. Never mind the damage all that sugar does to those little teeth (Here's an idea-our dentist buys back candy at $1 per pound and sends it to our troops overseas!). For the parent of an allergic child, the concern is more about the damage that the hidden food allergen might do to our kids. The zombie costumes are ghoulish enough- do we really need to amp up the freakishness with hives and giant swollen lips? The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology offers some Halloween tips here: http://www.aaaai.org/patients/elements/1008/08halloween_checklist.stm I think these ideas are a great start, but I do doubt the practicality of distributing your own safe snacks to neighbors in advance of trick-or-treating. (Not really fair to expect them to keep track- or even be able to recognize your kid if he or she is in...

If you have a child or children with food allergies, consider participating in the Children's Memorial Hospital Food Allergy Study . "The Children’s Memorial Food Allergy Study is a large, family-based food allergy study and holds great potential for scientific discovery and clinical translation. It is gaining momentum with the support of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Chicago Community Trust, Food Allergy Initiative , and generous donors. " Your participation will advance knowledge regarding the genetic basis of food allergy, environmental contributors to food allergy, the possibility of predicting and/or preventing food allergy, and the optimal treatments for this condition. Participation will not alter your child's current medical treatment. This is an excellent opportunity to contribute to the knowledge about a condition that affects so many of our children. For more information, visit http://www.childrensmrc.org/allergy/ , call 1-888-573-1833 or...