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Overreacting To A Child Food Allergy

It was once presumed that the only way to treat a child food allergy was to avoid any contact with that food for the rest of one’s life. For people who test positive for allergies to dairy, milk, chicken, pork, rice, oat, barley, eggs, beans and wheat, this diagnosis can seem like a death sentence. However, a new approach is being advocated in many allergy clinics across America. Some patients respond to a food challenge, which incrementally increases the patient’s dosage of the allergen until tolerance is achieved. “I thought it was pretty entertaining,” admits fifteen-year-old Alex Simko of Geneva, Illinois, who was able to eat eggs after 12 years of believing she had an egg allergy. Now she can finally eat donuts again!

What about food allergies in babies? When four week old Grayson Grebe got eczema on his cheeks, his mother began to worry. Two months later, he was diagnosed with every food allergy in the book, including wheat, dairy, egg, bean, oat, rice, barley, chicken, pork, corn and peanut. His mother stopped eating these foods, but her baby’s condition did not improve. By 10 months, the doctors had cut out fruits and vegetables and put Grayson on a special hypo-allergenic formula. His eczema was so severe he needed to wear special mittens, long-sleeved shirts and long pants to prevent him from scratching. Once treated at the National Jewish Health center that specializes in allergies and respiratory diseases, doctors gave Grayson food challenges — 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.”

The only way to truly tell if a child food allergy is present is to give the child the suspected food and wait for a reaction. Naturally, many parents are hesitant to have their child ingest what could be a fatal dose of food that results in anaphylactic shock. Sometimes doctors will recommend a skin prick test or giving the child a very, very small dose of the suspected allergen in a clinical setting. For instance, a child with a suspected allergy to peanuts may be asked to try one-tenth of the amount of peanut protein found in the average nut. Gradually, that amount can be increased to see where the tolerance threshold lies. Some kids will continue having allergies for the rest of their lives, while others may simply overcome their hypersensitivity.

Child food allergy tests have gotten some flack in the news recently. A study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (January, 2010) found that 66/79 children who tested positive for peanut IgE antibodies could eat peanuts safely. Similarly, doctors from National Jewish Health reported that half of the 125 patients given food challenges could tolerate the foods they’d been avoiding for years. Hopefully, there will be new blood tests in the future. Research companies like Phadia AB are looking at tests that can determine which precise molecule within a food will trigger the antibody reaction. For instance, in those patients with peanut allergies, only 3/14 molecules are associated with anaphylaxis.

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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