Children Food Allergy Recipes Food Cooking International Guide
Children Food Allergy Diagnosed With Food Challenge Tests
By Julia Taylor-Fernandez
Birthdays were always difficult for five-year-old Blake Ringstrom.
He’d watch other kids eat cookies, cupcakes, brownies, candy and
ice cream. He couldn’t help but see how much other kids loved
to smell their food, touch their food and taste their food.
For Blake, getting his nutrients from a tube implanted in his
stomach was all he really knew. Since he was six months old, he
had suffered with the worst degree of children food allergy, which
prevented him from eating everything except pork and white navy
beans.
However, with a wonderful revolutionary test called a Food Challenge,
kid food allergy specialists were able to review their options
and increase Blake’s tolerance to a number of foods, so
he can sit down to normal meals with his family.
The Gold Standard For Food Allergy Diagnosis
"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.
Baby Drake Has A Food Allergy
In another case, Drake Norvell’s family panicked when his children
food allergy surfaced. "The first time we found out [Drake]
had a food allergy, he was about 4 to 6 months old, and I had
fed him cereal," Jessica Norvell recalls. "I gave him
his first bite and noticed a few red spots develop.
With the second bite he started coughing and I knew something
wasn’t right, but a food allergy didn’t cross my mind." Drake
cannot eat peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, dairy, eggs, fish and shellfish.
If he does, he will suffer allergic reactions like nausea, hives,
low blood pressure and constricted airways.
Lifelong Allergy To Shellfish And Peanuts
While most of his allergies have seen an improvement through
Food Challenge testing, his tolerance for shellfish and peanuts
has gotten worse, so it’s likely he will have a lifelong allergy
to these foods.
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.
Special Children Allergy Diets
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."
Please Note: All information given
on this site is for general information purposes and is not to
replace any medical opinion or medical diagnosis or any other
medical expert, as individual circumstances may vary. Please see
your medical doctor, before any action is taken to alleviate symptoms.
About the Author:
Julia Taylor-Fernandez has written a number of articles on food allergies, nutrition, dieting and cooking including
Food Allergies,
General Nutrition,
Teapot Cake,
Low Carb Cheese Cake,
Fresh Fruit,
Nutritional Information,
Healthy Appetizers,
Low Carb Dinners,
Health Food Store.
Keep a lookout for more of her articles on this website.
Did You Know?
How do I handle child food allergies if my child eats at school?
Handling child food allergies for children
that eat lunch or breakfast at their school can be difficult.
You really have no control about what they eat and what the lunches
contain. You can try sending a letter from your doctor stating
the allergies your child has and hope that the school carefully
monitors the food that is given to your child.
The best alternative though is to send
food with your child. That way you can control what the food has
in it, what it has come into contact with and prevent any mishaps
that may occur if your child is not old enough to pay attention
to what is being served.
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