My Allergy Kid

Cross contamination is one of the biggest difficulties in the life of a food allergy sufferer. Cross contamination affects not only food , but also surfaces.

In our home, the biggest problem is the fact that Mason is the only one with food allergies. So the rest of us do eat foods that he is allergic to, we just have to be very careful. If Brody eats a yogurt, I have to make sure his hands and face are completely clean of the dairy proteins. If he has on his hands and touches a toy that Mason then touches, Mason could have a very severe reaction just from touching the contaminated toy. I have to be very careful with sippy cups. If Brody accidentally takes a drink from Mason’s cup after having eaten a food item Mason is allergic to, then again, Mason could have a very severe, life threatening reaction if he drinks out of the cup before I get the chance to thoroughly clean it or get him a new one.

At home, it’s not as difficult to avoid cross contamination. Mason has his own area of the refrigerator that is specifically for his foods. He has his own cabinet of “Mason friendly” foods that are just for him. The problem is public places. Play grounds are a specific area of concern. A common picnic food or school lunch food is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Kids eat and then go play. It’s an easy place for there to be peanut butter proteins on the equipment. All Mason would have to do is touch it and be at risk for a reaction. The same goes for grocery carts. Think of all the items that get put in and out of a grocery cart and how many of them may contain allergens.

Cross contamination in food is another big issue. This is why a lot of allergic people stay away from restaurants. The simple misuse of a cooking tool or the accidental touching by the handler of an allergic food before touching the allergic persons food could all result in an allergic reaction. Peanut oils are popular cooking oils, which can be problematic for those with peanut allergies.

It’s a fine line between protectiveness and a bubble-like world to live in. We desire for Mason to have as normal as a childhood as possible, however we desire to keep him safe, healthy and away from allergens. With careful attention and diligence, this is possible- difficult, but possible.

There are only two basic ways to test for food allergies: skin tests and blood tests.
Skin prick tests are performed in a doctor’s office and results are known before you leave the office. Doctors will use a tool that resembles a fork with 2 prongs. A small amount of the allergen is placed either on the tool or directly on the skin. Then the device is placed on the skin to prick or break through the first layer of skin, putting a small amount of the allergen under the skin. A hive will form any spot where the person is allergic. This test is ideal for quickly learning if there is an allergy present. Skin tests cannot predict if a reaction would occur or what kind of reaction might occur if a person ingests that particular allergen. They can, however, confirm an allergy in light of a patient’s history of reactions to a particular food.

Blood tests are another useful diagnostic tool. One test is the RAST (RadioAllergoSorbent Test) which detects the presence of IgE antibodies to a particular allergen. A CAP-RAST test is a specific type of RAST test with greater specificity: it can show the amount of IgE present to each allergen. The RAST test results are compared to “predictive value” charts that researchers have come up with to determine sensitivity. If a persons RAST score is higher than the predictive value for that food, then there is over a 95% chance the person will have an allergic reaction if they ingest that food. Currently, predictive values are available for the following foods: milk, egg, peanut, fish, soy, and wheat. Blood tests allow for hundreds of allergens to be screened from a single sample, and cover food allergies as well as inhalants.

There currently is no cure for food allergies. Treatment consists of avoidance diets, in which the allergic person avoids all forms of the food of which they are allergic. For people who are extremely sensitive, like Mason, this may involve total avoidance of any exposure with the allergen, including touching or inhaling the allergic food as well as touching any surfaces that may have come into contact with it.

Food allergies are very different from a food intolerance. The common misconception is that they are the same thing. I can’t put it into words better than the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), so this information comes straight from them.

The difference between an allergy and an intolerance is how the body handles the offending food. In a true food allergy, the body’s immune system recognizes a reaction-provoking substance, or allergen, in the food–usually a protein–as foreign and produces antibodies to halt the “invasion.” As the battle rages, symptoms appear throughout the body. The most common sites are the mouth (swelling of the lips), digestive tract (stomach cramps, vomiting, diarrhea), skin (hives, rashes or eczema), and the airways (wheezing or breathing problems). People with allergies must avoid the offending foods altogether.

Food intolerance is a much more common problem than allergy. Here, the problem is not with the body’s immune system, but, rather, with its metabolism. The body cannot adequately digest a portion of the offending food, usually because of some chemical deficiency. For example, persons who have difficulty digesting milk (lactose intolerance) often are deficient in the intestinal enzyme lactase, which is needed to digest milk sugar (lactose). The deficiency can cause cramps and diarrhea if milk is consumed. Estimates are that about 80 percent of African-Americans have lactose intolerance, as do many people of Mediterranean or Hispanic origin. It is quite different from the true allergic reaction some have to the proteins in milk.

(http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/wh-alrg1.html)

A food allergy is an immunologic response to a food protein. It is estimated that up to 12 million Americans have food allergies of one type or another, and the prevalence is rising. Roughly 6-8 percent of children under the age of three have food allergies and about 4 percent of adults have them as well. Food allergies cause about 30,000 emergency room visits and 100 to 200 deaths per year in the US. The most common food allergies (known as the Big Eight) are shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and eggs, milk, soy and wheat. These are the allergens you’ll find listed under the ingredients list on most food packaging .

Sadly, there currently is no cure for food allergies. Treatment consists of avoidance diets, in which the allergic person avoids all forms of the food to which they are allergic. This can be difficult because of the various “names” for different foods. People with dairy allergies have to avoid foods with the ingredient listed as “whey” or “casein”. For people who are extremely sensitive, this may involve the total avoidance of any exposure with the allergen, including touching or inhaling the problematic food as well as touching any surfaces that may have come into contact with it. Food allergy is distinct from food intolerance, which is not caused by an immune reaction. We’ll talk about the difference in between food allergies and intolerances in my next post.