About Our Food Allergy Family

My husband and I both agreed that we wanted to reach out and connect with other families with food allergies. We receive a lot of encouragement, ideas, and moral support by reading blogs of other food allergic families and we felt that we wanted to contribute too. We have two happy and healthy children who are the lights of our lives. They both also happen to have life-threatening food allergies which has dramatically changed the way our family eats.

Our son, age 3, is the most severe of my two food allergic children. He has multiple life-threatening food allergies to dairy, eggs, nuts, poultry, fish, pinto beans, peas, and most likely tropical fruits. He has had one actual anaphylactic reaction after accidentally taking a drink of another child’s cow’s milk. I pray that that never happens again. We avoid eating out because of the possibility of cross-contamination.

His most recent IgE test showed that his allergy levels were actually increasing. His peanut test is actually over 100 which is off the chart. My husband and I were feeling pretty down about this and I guess that’s why we wanted to reach out to others.

We have known that our son was a food allergic child since he was about 7 months old. We had him tested because he was having severe eczema and rashes. We had also noticed how his eczema would flare up after eating certain baby foods. At Thanksgiving when he was 8 months old, after eating turkey, his cheeks became bright red and rough. We didn’t know at that time that the turkey was bothering him. We actually had family photographs taken and the photographer asked if I’d like to have her retouch the photograph to take the redness out of my little guy’s cheeks!

My daughter, age 8, also has life-threatening food allergies to nuts and sesame. Honestly, I sometimes forget about the seriousness of her allergies because compared to her brother, she’s a breeze! It’s fairly easy to avoid nuts and sesame; however, we have to be vigilant about making sure she never eats them. We first discovered her food allergies when she was still very little. My husband and I were eating take-out Chinese cashew chicken. I gave her a cashew to eat. Her reaction was delayed by about an hour but she began projectile vomiting and broke out in hives. Her pediatrician said it was most likely an allergic reaction and that’s what we chalked it up to. It didn’t feel like a huge deal… so we wouldn’t eat cashews anymore, right?

Then when she was two and a half, she ate an ice cream cone with a few peanut sprinkles on the top and then we went swimming. At the pool, she started having chills and as I was holding her, I noticed her eyes and lips swelling! We rushed home and gave her Benadryl, and she was better.

Looking back, we were so naïve about dealing with food allergies. My daughter was our first experience with it; however, the extensiveness of my son’s allergies has forced us to become very well educated in the food allergy department. My goal is to share my experiences, ideas, support, and recipes for others who find themselves in the same situation. Thanks for reading!