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A Child Food Allergy Should be taken Very Serious

February 15th, 2010 |

Author: admin

Food Allergies Can often be Treated

For parents, a child food allergy is upsetting news. How can they protect their child from all contact with a particular food? Where will they find food allergy recipes? What if other kids tease and make fun of their condition? Parents have always struggled to help their children with food allergies that make life much more difficult, but researchers are slowly developing the opinion that small exposure to the allergens will gradually build tolerance in most kids. Children with shellfish or peanut allergies may always suffer, but a number of kids can outgrow their sensitivity to certain foods.

And how about babies and food allergies? Let me tell you the story about the four week old Grayson Grebe. When Grayson started to develop eczema on his cheeks his mother began to feel uncomfortable. She got him to the doctor and two months later he was diagnosed having about any food allergy known today. Greyson was found being allergic to wheat, diary products, egg, bean, oat, rice, barley, peanuts, pork and even chicken. His mother stopped eating these foods but Greysons condition didn't improve. When the boy was 10 months old the doctors had cut out fruits and vegetables and put the infant on a special hypo-allergenic diet.

His symptoms were so severe he needed to wear special mittens, long-sleeved shirts and long pants to prevent him from scratching himself. Once treated at the National Jewish Health center that specializes in allergies and respiratory diseases did his condition improve. The doctors there gave him food challenges, meaning gradually exposing him to small doses of the foods he was supposedly allergic to. "We came home with 12 foods he could eat," Amy Grebe recalls. "It's made so much difference in our lives."

Food allergies have to be taken very seriously and should not be treated without proper medical supervision. The dangers are severe, and can even result in anaphylactic shock. Therefore you should never experiment with your own version of child food allergy tests.

In rare cases, a child with a severe allergy may suffer low blood pressure, stop breathing, turn slightly blue, lose consciousness and suffer multiple organ failure. Even if a child has only suffered a mild reaction in the past, there is still a possibility the next reaction may be more severe.

Unfortunately, there are no tests to determine whether a reaction to peanuts will be a mild tingle in the mouth, a moderate case of hives or anaphylactic shock. On the other hand, being in a clinical setting is much safer than discovering an allergy out in the real world, where medical equipment isn't ready to administer treatment for food allergy emergencies.

The most important part of diagnosing a child food allergy is to examine the child's dietary history. "What did he eat? What kind of reaction did he have?" the doctor will ask. Next, the doctor may recommend a blood test or a skin-prick test for added confirmation. "If you come to me and say, 'My child ate a peanut butter sandwich and within 15 minutes, his lips turned blue, he got hives and threw up,' that's enough to tell me the child has a peanut allergy," explains Dr. Hugh Sampson of Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

"The more typical history is that they were eating a meal and he had this horrible reaction and they think it's peanuts. It's important to do a skin or blood test to make sure."