Adventures of an Allergist Mommy

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

Conventional wisdom has always been to "count to ten" when administering an epinephrine autoinjector, so as to allow the medication enough time to be adequately delivered into the muscle. However, in practice, ten seconds can seem like an eternity when attempting to hold a little one still. Many parents worry that if they don't follow the "ten second rule", their squirmy kid will not receive enough life-saving medication to avert an allergic disaster. Well, here's some good news: a recent study evaluating various EpiPen injection times has determined that even with an injection time as short as 1 second, over 95% of epinephrine was absorbed into muscle. ( Baker TW, Webber CM, Stolfi A, Gonzalez-Reyes E:  The TEN study: time epinephrine needs to reach muscle.  Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2011;107:235-238. ) No little children were used as pincushions in the course of this study. Instead, the researchers used marbelized beef as a proxy for human thigh...

Ever hear of "The One Minute Manager" , that classic book from the 80's that advised wanna-be CEO's on situational leadership techniques? I gave "One Minute Mothering" a try today... With my husband traveling for work most weeks, and my own expanding allergy micropractice, I don't have a lot of time for long heart-to-hearts with my kids. However, I spend a ton of time in the car with them! Usually, we rock out to Top 40 or listen to NPR. However, my boys aren't gleaning as much from public radio as I had hoped. This week, during a story on civil rights, my 3 year old asked me, "Mommy, who is Mr. Sippy?" To which my 6 year old answered, "It's not Mr. Sippy, dumb-dumb. It's MRS. Sippy!" Therefore, I've decided to re-purpose our time in the car to full advantage. No more hoping they will learn by osmosis. I've got to be a little more proactive. So, my new project is to find quotes that speak to me somehow, and tr...

I love Wednesday, because it's my day off during the week. My day to sip tea, eat biscotti, and catch up on emails, blogging, administrative tasks for work, and laundry. No rushing to get ready in the morning while encouraging the kids to scarf down their breakfasts! Instead, I can leisurely roll out of bed and focus my efforts on ensuring that my kids are clean, dressed and fed before heading off to school. So what if my make-up isn't done and I'm not fully dressed for work? I throw my hair into a ponytail and once my coat is on, no one is the wiser, right? Wrong. Kids notice everything. So, I was just a little embarrassed when my son was excitedly asked by a friend, "Does your mom have pajama day at work today TOO?!?!" (Kids are crazy about pajama days.) I looked down at myself, and what I saw was horrifying: Instead of yoga pants, I left the house in a pair of MY HUSBAND'S PLAID PAJAMA PANTS. You know, the ones that shrunk in the wash as soon as h...

Last week, my 3 year old, whose asthma is generally very mild, needed a few treatments of his albuterol inhaler. Because he is unaccustomed to having the spacer device on his face, the process of administering the medication was a bit of an ordeal. When I say a bit of an ordeal, I mean kicking, screaming, tears flowing, hyperventilating -- you know, nothing I can't handle. I finally got the puffs in him, and swore to myself that we weren't going through that again. By that point, we were already late for daycare, so I left the inhaler and spacer on the coffee table and whisked the kids off to school. That evening, as I was preparing dinner, I heard a strange musical noise, and turned to find Son #2 using his spacer as a vuvuzela. Here was the same child who only that morning was so vehemently resisting his treatment, now dancing around the kitchen with his spacer and inhaler attached to his face. The sound might have been as annoying as anything coming out of the World Cu...

The past few years have seen increasing interest in potential strategies to reduce the risk of allergy and asthma in young children. One particularly popular topic has been that of early pet exposure potentially decreasing the risk of animal allergy. Indeed, I am often asked by parents of my young patients if I recommend adding a furry pet to the household. However, it has been unclear how early in life the pet exposure needs to occur in order to modify risk.  A recent analysis of data from the Detroit Childhood Allergy Study sheds some light on this important question. It was published in the July 2011 issue of the peer-reviewed medical journal Clinical & Experimental Allergy. (Clin Exp Allergy. 2011;41:920-922) Annual interviews from 1987 through 1989, and follow-up interviews at age 18 years, were used to assess study subjects' exposure to indoor dogs and cats. After analyzing pet exposure during the first year of life, specific age ranges, and cumulative lifet...