Food Allergies: My Story
Why did I decide to specialize in food allergy nutrition?
Good question.
Food allergies are not covered in great depth for most dietitians during their education and training.
I attended a great dietetics university and had an excellent supervised practice experience, but still had limited experience with nutrition care for multiple food allergies. In fact, most of my exposure to food allergy nutrition was related to food service for patients in the hospital.
In the ten years that I have worked as a dietitian, the prevalence of food allergies has increased in the United States. In 2008, it was reported that 1 in 25 children had a food allergy; today that statistic has increased to 1 in 13 children.
The good news is that we now know more than ever about food allergies. The increase in food allergies has helped drive significant advances in research and guidelines for food allergy management. However, it is difficult for the average clinical dietitian to stay up to date on the shear volume of rapid advancements in food allergy prevention guidelines, labeling laws, and prospective treatments.
We Need More Food Allergy Dietitians
I first become aware of my own shortcomings and the need for more food allergy dietitians when several friends began sharing their experiences as new food allergy parents. A few even reached out to me directly for advice or resources, but I could only offer limited help.
Food allergy experiences like Nelle’s story and Paxton’s story motivated me to dedicate more of my professional continuing education to food allergies. If nothing else, I wanted to learn more so I could offer some help to my friends who were struggling to navigate multiple food allergies on their own.
Around the same time, I was also taking the first steps to open my own nutrition private practice. I knew I wanted to work with families and decided to include a sub-specialty in food allergy nutrition.
“Nothing can prepare you for when it happens to your own child”
A few weeks after I opened my private practice, my youngest child had an allergic reaction to peanuts. He was six months old. Food allergies were now personal.
I shared our first experience with food allergies in a previous post, but the truth is I’m still processing what happened during that first allergic reaction. My husband had cared for dozens of patients with severe allergic reactions during his time as an emergency room nurse. “Despite this training, nothing can prepare you for when it happens to your own child,” he explained.
Every 3 minutes, a food allergy reaction sends someone to the emergency room in the U.S.
After medical care had been given and our son’s hives went away, we were left with our emotions and the reality of our new food allergy life. My child could have died because of something I fed him.
We were fortunate that our controlled peanut exposure did not result in an anaphylactic reaction. Yet we knew that his next reaction could be anaphylactic – food allergies are unpredictable. Every three minutes in the United States, a food allergy reaction sends someone to the emergency room.
That night we allowed ourselves to grieve for both ourselves and our son’s future. The next morning, we started moving on to our “new normal” - life with a peanut allergy child. But then a few weeks later he had another allergic reaction, which at the time we attributed to bananas. The scary thing is that food allergies can develop at any age and at any time – even to a food that was safely eaten before.
It took us almost a month to come to terms that our son had multiple food allergies. And then one morning he developed hives while eating scrambled eggs. I naively had assumed eggs were safe – he had been eating them for weeks!
I was in a complete state of panic as I called our pediatrician’s office to report this third suspected food allergy. I had no idea what to feed my child and was afraid that anything I gave him would trigger another allergic reaction. Fortunately the clinic was able to expedite a referral to a pediatric allergist.
We had to wait two weeks until our appointment. During that time I used my new knowledge to pull together a survival menu for our eight month old. He was growing and wanted more than just breast milk. I knew he was eating less variety of food than his older siblings did at that age, but I was living in constant fear of another allergic reaction. Having a food plan was a huge help for both of us.
After waiting for what seemed like forever, our visit to the pediatric allergist finally arrived. Our son had a skin prick test and the allergist confirmed his peanut and egg allergies while ruling out bananas, wheat, dairy, and soy. We had a plan to return in six months for additional testing, including tree nuts and avocados (a potential cross-contamination for the suspected banana reaction). Our allergist went out of his way to squash my “mom guilt” and assure us that nothing we did could have caused these food allergies.
And then on our way out the door, we were handed a list of foods to avoid for peanut allergies. While this was enough for us to manage our son’s allergies at home, I knew that this small gesture would not be enough for most families. I was spending hours every week researching food allergy nutrition on my own and trying so many new allergy-friendly recipes.
Registered Dietitian and Food Allergy Mom
So here we are. I am a Registered Dietitian and a food allergy mom.
The anxiety and panic surrounding a new food allergy diagnosis is real. I understand how it feels. I have been there. And I can help.
As a dietitian, I can’t take away all the stress and anxiety that comes with multiple food allergies. Believe me – if I could, I would. What I can do is provide in-depth food allergy nutrition education and resources to help families feel more confident managing their new food allergies.
My goal as a food allergy dietitian is to empower you with the knowledge and resources to navigate food allergies and nurture a healthy relationship with food.
Because every child truly deserves a chance to grow and thrive.
Do you know someone new to food allergies? If so, please share my story so they know they are not alone. And that I can help make their experience a little easier.
