Stories About Children Food Allergy
A children food allergy can be devastating news for parents -- just ask the Ringstroms. Five-year-old Blake Ringstrom suffered allergic reactions to so many foods that he went from a pork and navy bean diet to being fed through a tube implanted in his stomach. "We felt like we were grasping at straws," says Blake's mother, Becky. "He wasn't getting better, he wasn't growing, he was still kind of sick all the time... the itching was constant. We had to put socks over his hands so he wouldn't make himself bleed." However, thanks to the Food Challenge, Blake is now able to eat most sit-down meals with his family.
"The Food Challenge is what we call the gold standard for diagnosing a food allergy," explains National Jewish Hospital's Dr. David Fleischer. In a landmark study, Fleischer and colleagues discovered that the best way to determine whether a food allergy was present was simply to give the child a small amount of that food in a clinical setting and gradually increase the dose until tolerance is reached. The kids food allergy study uncovered that they could reintroduce over 50% of the foods that came back positive in the allergy blood tests. "The problem is that a lot of people think they have food allergies; there are a lot of people that have reactions to food out there, but not every reaction is a food allergy," Fleischer says.
In another case, five-year-old Ashley Garcia came to the emergency room after eating an ice cream cone with nuts, which made her parents fear that she had a life-threatening children food allergy to peanuts. Her father recalls, "By the time we got there, her eyes were bloodshot red and it seemed like there was a whole other layer of skin. She broke out in a rash." After some consideration, the Garcias agreed to a Food Challenge, despite the risk that she may suffer those terrible food allergy symptoms again. "If it's going to happen, this is probably the best place for it to happen," they concluded. Over time, Ashley was finally able to eat a whole Reese's peanut butter cup without reacting.
Rather than go through the time-consuming and money-consuming process of a Food Challenge, some parents would rather just shop carefully and try to make home life as normal as possible. Judy Phipps, owner of the Little Protégés early learning center, says she focuses her efforts on educating kids and parents about special children food allergy diets. "We don't ever want to single a child out as being different. Kids don't know what they're not missing, so if we have a child with a peanut allergy, we'd go out of our way not to introduce that," she explains. "We talk about healthy food and we promote healthy food. We educate the parents but we don't try to pull someone out and make it awkward." She adds that they focus on healthy eating, which gives families something to feel good about in the end. "A lot of people see it as an inconvenience, but for others this is their kid, or even themselves, and it's a part of life."
Jeremy Larson is a foremost expert in the natural acid reflux remedies. He has had extensive experience and conducted countless experiments in finding natural remedy for acid reflux. He is also a highly acclaimed writer in the medical field.
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