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Now He wears a button

I never realized how many people loved to touch babies until I had a child with contact allergies. We didn't know what to do at first but after months of trying to get people to stop touching him by atticipating their moves we decided to create a button for him to wear. We thought it would be cute to play off a sign at the Denver zoo and put. I know I am cute but please do not TOUCH or FEED me! I have severe food allergies.

Socks on the Hands

One of the greatest things as a parent is going to the park and seeing your child slide down the slides and swing while laughing in excitement. Unfortunately, when you have a child with contact allergies that joy isn't possible without creative thinking.
We really wanted our little boy to enjoy what most children get to do for fun. So we figured lets try and cover him up mostly with long pants, closed toed shoes, a shirt and then...what? What to put on the hands of a 16 month old. We searched the Internet and stores for gloves that would fit our little guy. Gloves are not easy to find for little hands, especially in the summer. Our solution was to put little socks on his hands. The amazing thing is that he doesn't even mind having them on him. We only put them one when we are doing something fun where he needs them. It's been really liberating for our little one. We love the socks.

Staying In Hotels

Since we had our son diagnosed with his allergies we discovered that his contact allergies serious limit things that we can or cannot do. Nevertheless, we try to conquer most of the challenges presented to us by his allergies. On of those was to figure out how to stay at hotels. We've discovered that by asking for five or more sheets upon checking in and covering the furniture and the floor with the sheets enables us to let our little guy walk around the hotel room without having a reaction. We also wipe down the tables and or desks in the room.
Usually we also try and get a room with a kitchenette so that we don't have to eat at restaurants while we are not at home. That way we don't have to worry about the whole eating out craziness and difficulties.
All of these percautions have made staying at a hotel much less nerve raking.

His Birthday His Type of Food

When my son turned one we already knew about the milk and egg allergies and my husband and I decided that his birthday would be a completely safe birthday for him. We didn't want to have any food at the party that could pose a threat to his health and safety. We baked a cake for him from scratch and bought a few extra foods and drinks to serve. However, we also decided to make sure the party wasn't food focused. Thus, we went to the zoo.

There were a few moments of pure comedy though the night before. After I baked the applesauce cake that was 100% safe I put it to cool on the table. My nephew who was visiting us and is 2 years old was eating a yogurt and getting messy as all 2 year old children do when they eat. Not really a problem considering he wasn't eating over the cake. However, when he was done he saw the cake took his dirty yogurt covered hands and went straight for the cake smearing the top with two lovely hand prints. Take two of the cake worked much better and I hid it from little hands.

Other than that the birthday worked really well and my son had a special first birthday that was just for him.

What Came First the Chicken or the Egg?

When my husband and I were researching in the beginning regarding the allergies we read that on rare occasions kids who were allergic to eggs could become allergic to chicken and that children allergic to milk could become allergic to beef.

About a month ago our son refused to eat any beef or chicken put before him. He used to love chicken soup and all of a sudden, or so it felt, he wouldn't swallow any of it. We recently had our little guy tested for more allergies by his new allergist. Everything in his diet was tested, in an attempt to find the root of our son's vomiting and such. Unfortunately, we didn't find that answer but along the way we got a confirmation that the reason he was refusing those foods was because he was allergic to beef and chicken as well as turkey. Our little man was one of those rare cases who's allergies to both milk and eggs led him to be allergic to the animals that produced them.

The bright side of it is that he doesn't have the same anaphylactic reactions.

A Food Allergic Kid

I have been told numerous times by parents of children with food allergies that their children are food allergic. I've also been told my own son is a food allergic kid. This title bothers me greatly. My child does indeed have food allergies. In fact my child has multiple food allergies, and has recently been diagnosed with more. Nevertheless, to me my child is not food allergic. It is not what defines him entirely as a human being. It is only an aspect of who he is. Granted it is a large aspect an effects many parts of his life. Nonetheless, there are many other qualities that make up my son: such as his brilliant sense of humor which already shows through at a year old, his mischievousness which is infectious, his inquisitiveness which enables him to understand things quickly, his easy going nature which enables him to enjoy life and smile even through all his pain. This is my child. These are what define him. I don't want him to be the food allergic kid, I want him to be the child that has food allergies and therefore, needs to have different boundaries and limitations. My child will not be defined only by his illness.

National Food Allergy Week

Yesterday kicked off the National Food Allergy Week. There are a number of different activities taking place through local and national groups. FAAN is working on their legislation to help people with food allergies. Everyone should check out their website at www.foodallergy.org. In addition, I recommend checking out POFAK at www.kidswithfoodallergies.org. These are both great resources for families living with food allergies.

Help people understand what it means living with food allergies, one of the most effective ways of raising awareness is speaking with people you know.

What About Those Hives?

We noticed that whenever our son had a reaction there as always one last symptom. The first stool after the reaction always left a hive on his tush and groin area. When we first asked our former allergist about this she said that it wasn't possible and didn't give us any other explanations as to why this would happen.

We weren't so happy regarding this answer and the next time we brought up the subject again. At which point she said it could happen that our son's digestive system wasn't breaking down the protein of the allergen causing the reaction and therefore, when he went to the bathroom he would have a second skin contact reaction to the allergen.

If They Don't Live With It They Don't Get It

Before I found out about my sons allergies I knew a few people who had food allergies to peanuts or milk, but I never truly understood until we were living with it ourselves. It is the kind of medical condition that if you don't live with it, it is very hard to understand.

In our society many people have allergies specifically to the environment and we watch commercials and talk with our friends and family about how they just had to take this medication and it was under control or that in general their allergies are no big deal. This is not necessarily the case with a food allergy. Of course there are people that don't have such severe reactions to their allergen. On the other hand there are also people who are very sick on a daily basis because of their allergies and cannot participate the way other children or people can in certain activities because of them.

With our son our entire lives changed. We have to look at everything through the eyes of his allergies. This does not mean that we don't have fun and do wonderful things. This means that we are also prepared and conscious of everything around us in order to protect him. Many people don't understand this reality that we live in and quite frankly I don't expect them to. Nobody can understand the severity of food allergies unless you are personally effected by them.

What to Do Without Eggs

The bad thing about having an egg allergy is that it is in so many things. The great thing is you get a lot of home cooked meals and home baked goods. At least in this house that's the way it's worked.

I've learned since we found out about my son's egg allergies ways in which to substitute for eggs. There are many options out there however, I've gotten by on just a few honestly.

For baking and cooking I usually use Ener-G Eggs. This is a powder found in places like Whole Foods or Vitamin Cottage. You can use it in recipes as an egg, egg yolk, or egg white for baking purposes. However, it cannot be used to make an egg dish. Although it can be used to make French Toast. We just use the Ener-g Egg as a direct substitute in our French Toast recipes!

For baking cakes and cake like breads such as banana bread I use 1/4 cup applesauce for every egg I replace. This works really great. You can also use a whole banana, 1/4 cup squash or other puree of your choice which fits the test of your recipe better.

I've been told that there are other ways as well such as 2 Tbsp. water + 1 Tbsp. oil + 2 tsp. baking powder. I've never used this way all though I have added water and oil to recipes that I've used Ener-G eggs. I've done it all by feel however, because I know what my breads should feel like.

The one thing I was having a hard time figuring out was how to glaze my breads. Recently, I've learned that you can take 1/4 cup milk (I use Rice Milk) and 2 tablespoons sugar. You place this on the stove until the sugar dissolves and the mixture has boiled for 2-3 minutes. Then on a freshly baked bread just taken out of the oven you brush the glaze on and you have a beautiful glazed bread.

Lastly, for egg salads and scrambled eggs we use Tofu. It works really well and on Post Punked Kitchen you can find some nice recipes.

We've found that cooking without eggs is quite easy and that we get the bonus that we can eat raw and under cooked dough!

Visitors Coming

Around April we had about 10 visitors come for a number of days. They were all coming to visit our son for his birthday and for a holiday. Before they came my brother decided that while we were in the house his 2 year old son would not drink milk. We were all concerned that while drinking my nephew might accidentally touch our son or get milk traces on toys. I'm very happy that we decided not to allow him to have milk products in the house. It was very hard for my nephew, on the few occasions that we did, to understand why he had to clean his face so much and his hands.

After they left we realized that when we were to have another child we would have to go milk and egg free in the house to make it more safe for our son.

Vegan With A Twist

Some of the most valuable products for a family avoiding milk and eggs are those made for vegans. Most of them are safe for people with these allergies to eat. Of course there are times that we have to be careful, such as in situations were there is cross contamination and the like. Nevertheless in general our cart at the check out line is full of vegan food. We have of course our favorites that taste better than others like Tofutti cheeses and Whole Soy and Co. yogurts. All of which contain no traces of milk nor are they cross contaminated.

The irony of us buying all the vegan food is that we usually also have meat right buy the vegan cheeses. We are "vegan" with the twist of meat. In all seriousness though it is extremely helpful to have the vegan option.

We Would Have Known the Triage Nurses

When we left the allergist the first time they told us that if our son gets a reaction we should first give him benadryl watch to see if the reaction subsides and if it does not to do anything more. They told us only if we feel the benadryl isn't working should we proceed to administer the Epipen and than take him directly to the ER.

When we went the second time the doctor asked us about his reactions. We told her he was having one every other day at that point, but that we did what we were told. We also told her what the reactions were like, at which point she informed us that we were lucky that nothing had happened to him and that in fact anytime he had an anaphylactic reaction, were two systems were involved, we needed to give him the Epipen and go to the ER. Had we done this we would have known the triage nurses and been at the ER half of our lives. Of course knowing that that's what would have happened had we first been told correctly how to handle the situation we would have gone every time. Nevertheless, we were given false information at first which interestingly enough was later corrected by the same doctor.

Since then we have altered our life style completely in order to protect our son and make sure that he doesn't need to go to the hospital every other day.

We Cannot Go to Preschool

As we realized how severe our son's allergies were we had to make a choice about our upcoming plans. I had been a stay at home mother for almost a year and we decided that both our son and I could use some more time out of the house. We are both extremely social creatures and love being around other people. However, at the same time I wanted to be near my little guy. I was offered a job as a preschool teacher where I could place my son in one of the classes. We would both be at the preschool for six hours a day and then get to go home and play some more and spend time with each other until his bedtime.

Upon discovering how quickly and by how little our son reacted we decided to nix the plans on going to preschool. We felt that there was no way we could expect the school to protect our son from reactions; we couldn't even do that 100% of the time. In addition my friend, who is the director, felt that the school wasn't equipped to deal with my son's allergies. Therefore, my husband and I came to the conclusion that our son and I would not be going to preschool this May.

We recognize that things will get a lot better after he grows out of the eat everything around phase but things will get better still after he can express himself verbally. Hence, we've also decided that until he can express the fact that he doesn't feel well; explain to people what he can't eat; and wash his hands before he puts them in his mouth that he will not be attending any preschool but the variety that takes place in our home with the mommy teacher.

Our Safe People

After finding out how severe our sons allergies were we decided to create "safe people" for him. These are people that he can trust to feed him food that is not going to hurt him because they understand what they need to look out for when buying and preparing food for our son. We've decided that my husband, my mother, my father, my brother, and myself are the "safe people". If the food is not from one of us we need to double check it. Of course as a baby he can't ask us yet, however, we still go out to friends' for dinner parties and other occasions. When we do this we always bring with us "safe food" and then check what is being served to check if he can it any thing.

We've also decided that when he is older and can speak that he will have to tell people that until he asks his parents he can not have food "x". If we check it and we approve it he will still not be able to the same food from the same person until we ok it again. Better safe then sorry.

I May Look OCD...

The other night I was at a FAAN walk committee meeting and all of us mothers were talking about how we appear OCD to the world. I've joked on many occasions to my family and friends that everywhere I go people must think this. After all I don't let my son touch the floors of any place but "safe" places such as home and some friends' homes. I wash his hands with wet wipes if he touches anything on the floor. If his bottle falls on the ground I wipe it too with wet wipes. The truth is I wipe everything with wet wipes. They have become my best friend. Everywhere I go I have at least one package of wet wipes. You want to touch my son, use a wet wipe. He dropped one of his toys, I use a wet wipe. The reality is that when you have a child with Food Allergies you do become a little OCD. You have to, or else you risk the chance of your child having a reaction. I may look OCD...I probably am by now.

It's Just a Dog!

We were tipped off a few days ago that we needed to check our dogs' foods to see if either of them contained egg or dairy. Both my dogs are on different foods for different reasons. Dougal (our boy dog) was easy we saw his contained egg powder and found a replacement for him that wouldn't be a problem the same day. Vashti (our girl dog) was another story entirely.

We had thrown out her bag (we put their food in buckets) so I needed to go and find her food in the store. This in itself isn't the easiest as the dog is on prescription food for urinary tract infections. Sure enough when we found the food the stuff had eggs in it. So I had to go searching through all of the 6 choices we have. Thank goodness they make some in dry and wet choices. One and only one of the 6 is ok for our dog. When I went to buy the can however, they wouldn't let me buy it because I didn't have prescription on me. I tried to explain to the vet on site at the pet store that our dog has this condition of urinary infections but at the same time my SON has deadly allergies to egg and milk. I pleaded with them to let me buy the can and write a note that said I release them from any medical liability they have. For goodness sake it's just a dog! No go. They refused to let me buy the food. In the end my dog has to eat the bad food for her until we get to the vets on Monday. There is no question for me dog's urinary infection is less important than my son's anaphylactic reactions.

Anaphylaxis and Anaphylactic Shock

My son has never gone into an anphylactic shock; that being said he has had an anaphylactic reaction. Anaphylactic shock is the most severe reaction to an allergy and is probably the one people initially associate with anaphylaxis. Thus when my son's body became swollen, he had hives all over his body, he was throwing up, and he was sneezing and coughing I didn't think my son was having an anaphylactic reaction. I knew he was having an allergic reaction and of course called the doctors. A nurse from the Children's hospital called me and told me just to give him benadryl and the reaction would go down but I didn't have to come in to the ER.
Now I know that I should have rushed him immediately because even though he wasn't in shock he was experiencing anaphylaxis. According to my Allergist any time more than one system (ie. hives and throwing up or hives and sneezing) is effected by the reaction the person is having an anaphylactic reaction and should be administered benadryl followed by an Epipen and then taken to the ER.
According to National Jewish the following are symptoms of Anaphylaxis:

• Increased trouble breathing
• Coughing
• Chest tightness
• Wheezing
• Dizziness
• Fainting
• Rapid weak heartbeat
• Swelling in the mouth and throat
• Trouble swallowing
• Flushing
• Itching
• Hives
• A feeling of warmth
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Stomach Cramping

My son also experienced swelling which is not on the list, however, my allergist and pediatrician considered that another symptom.
If you would like to know more about Anaphylaxis click on the link to National Jewish Hospital: http://www.nationaljewish.org/disease-info/diseases/allergy/about/conditions/anaphylaxis.aspx#symptoms

There Goes My Husband's Beard

Before my son was diagnosed with allergies my husband and I used to joke that he should never go with out his goatee and mustache. He had grown during college when he started working in the corporate world in order to appear older. Without the beard he looked like he was 15. After college he kept it up because he was managing a lot of people that could be his parents' age and it just made it easier to appear older than he was. One time he screwed up and had to shave it off and I agreed whole heartily that he shouldn't ever remove it because he looks so young. I also thought at the time he looked better with the facial hair.

After our son was diagnosed with the allergies my husband decided to shave it off for good. He was concerned that food would get stuck in the goatee and mustache (as it usually did) and then if he went to kiss our son or if our son was playing with his chin or face that some of the allergen could cause an anaphylactic reaction.

Now my husband is free of facial hair and we don't have to worry about our son getting hurt from Daddy's face.

Thinking It's Usually Milk

Because my son's first reactions were milk and because he is such a little guy we usually assume that a reaction was caused by milk. When we used to go to places were a lot of kids played we would see them all carrying around their little sippy cups. Therefore, if he got a reaction we figured it was just from the milk that kids were dripping everywhere. Everywhere of course being not so much in terms of cleaning but for a child with severe milk allergies it is a lot.

He has had some reactions to egg I'm assuming through my breast milk and at a restaurant before we really stopped going. However, the vast majority of his reaction was caused by milk from other children trailing their drinks around with them and then my son gumming everything everywhere like all babies do. We're hoping and realize in the back of our heads that as he gets older and stops sticking his hands on everything and then putting them in his mouth that his reactions won't happen as often.

FAAN How to Read a Label Cards

The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxsis Network (FAAN) sells How To Read A Label Cards. They sell them in these nice credit card sizes so you can put them in your wallet and they also come in magnets that you can put on your refrigerator to help in the Kitchen.

As soon as we saw these my husband and bought 4 copies of the Egg-free diet and the Milk-free diet ones as well as a pair for the fridge. We gave one set to my mother one to my father and then we each took a set for us. We are the 4 safe people that our son can take food from.

I was very excited about the labels, however, when we received the Egg-free diet one we noticed there were certain things that where not on the FAAN card that were on the list given to us by our allergist.

I took out a sharpie and added to all of them the following:

• Apovitellin
• Globulin
• Livetin
• Ovalbumin
• Ovomucin
• Ovomucoid

If you get the Egg-Free cards I would recommend adding them to the list.

To order go to www.foodallergy.org

• Simplesse

Signs for Vegan Food

Similar to signs that mark an item Kosher there are also signs on food that show something is vegan. Sometimes it is just written and sometimes it there is a symbol on the product. Although this is helpful in finding products it's still important to read the labels on the back.

One day when my husband and I were at Whole Foods we saw vegan pastas in the frozen section. I got really excited until I read the ingredients and found out that the Vegan ones were manufactured on the same lines as the non-Vegan ones. Therefore, we couldn't buy the product.

Never assume that something is safe just because it has a symbol. These symbols as well as the Kosher ones are just guides to help you. You are your child's best advocate.

Feeling I Can't Protect My Son

When he was first diagnosed I thought it would be easy. I believed that all we had to do was keep the food that he was allergic to away and viola things would be great. Nevertheless, he still had reactions and it wasn't just because of what he ate but because of what he played with, where he played. I started to feel like everything could send my son into anaphylactic reactions and many times there was a lot of things. I started feeling like I couldn't protect my own son! I felt really helpless about it especially because I found that my husband didn't feel the same way. After speaking to him a number of times about I began to realize how he sees it. We are protecting our son. He might still have reactions but we are finding more and more ways to create a safe and happy environment for him.
I'm beginning to accept that I can't protect him from everything but there is a lot that I can do that will minimize his reactions.

"I'll Just Take Him to the Ice Cream Parlor"

The other day my husband and I were talking about if we have other children who aren't allergic to food that outside the home we would let them eat things that our oldest can't. I then commented to my husband that maybe sometimes one of us would take them for special things without our oldest. My husband's response was, "That sounds great and then I'll take Yoi to somewhere he can go for a special treat too, like the Ice Cream Parlor." He sat for a second and then was said, "Wait that was stupid."
It happens. Anybody who just had a child diagnosed with allergies realizes that mistakes will happen. Every once in a while we still call our son's nutramigen "milk" only to realize the mistake.
I've learned my whole life and even more so now that it's important to recognize when I've made a mistake and not to get angry at myself. They happen. I've also learned it's even more important now because when people not related to my son make them I need to be sensitive to them. After all if we make them and we live with it everyday of our lives then we shouldn't expect other people just visiting or that we are visiting to not make them.

Restaurants Aren't so Relaxing Any More

My husband and I used to love going to restaurants. I didn't have to cook, I didn't have to clean and on top of it we got to eat food that wasn't normally on our cooking menu. After my son got allergies we realized when he would start eating full meals it would be hard to go to restaurants. We were ok with it and decided to enjoy going while we still had the chance.
Unfortunately, my son can react to even trace amounts on surfaces not visible to the naked eye. Therefore, restaurants even if we bring food for him aren't fun. We've learned ways to deal with in case there are situations when we don't have a choice such as on vacation or when somebody has a party.

I actually have a list of required things:
My own travel booster seat
Wet Ones or other Wet wipes with cleaning agents (not the ones your use for your child's tushy)
Table Toppers (I love them)

When I get to the table I clean the chair that he will use. I clean it all over because he likes to reach down and turn around and touch it everywhere. Then I clean the table in front of him. I never forget the sides of the bottom of the table, they are usually the most dirty. After that I set up his booster seat and put him a few inches from the table with his own tray on it. Finally I put a table topper on the area in front of him. Even though I keep him far from the table it's good to have a place that I can place his bottle or food that I brought with me.

You'll Just Have Bad Gas

Usually after telling people that my son has a milk allergy their responses go something like, "Oh, I have lactose intolerance too." or " So does that mean he just can't have lactose." or some other comment that makes it very clear that they don't understand the difference between Milk Allergies and Lactose Intolerance. Lactose Intolerance is of course not a pleasant thing to have but the reality is that it can never send you into an allergic anaphylactic reaction. Most people who have Lactose Intolerance could accidently eat something with milk in it and although they will have a bad stomach ache and probably bad gas afterwards they won't possibly need to take life saving medications.
My husband and I have learned that if we say he has a life-threathening allergy to milk and therefore, we need to carry and Epipen with us where ever we go people tend to not associate my son's allergy with an intolerance and are more understanding.

Please Don't Touch My Son

We've been told by my son's doctors that the severity of his reactions and the fact that he reacts to such trace amounts of the allergens is rare. To us it's the only way we've been aquainted with egg and milk allergies. Therefore, we naturally think of all the ways that trace amounts can find their way to our son's body and more specifically his mouth.

Like any parent of a baby knows, strangers always come up to touch babies. Whether they are giving them pats on the shoulder or touseling their hair people are always trying to show open effection to babies they don't even know. I used to think it was a weird quirk that strangers would come up to me and start touching my child...now I find it annoying and rude that they don't ask first.

In the beginning my husband and I didn't know how to deal with people touching him; should we say something, should we allow them to touch him and hold our tongues, should we ask if they've had anything with milk or eggs today? Eventually, we agreed that asking somebody if they had contact with milk or eggs was the best way to handle it. Of course we had to be quick on our toes and preemptively ask faster then they could reach out and pinch his cheeks. We've found that in general this works because people ask us why and usually after we explain that our son has a life threatening allergy most people either stop in their tracks and don't touch him or explain that they haven't had any of those things. The later group tend to continue their unwelcome touching. I honestly am more comfortable with the strangers that just back away from him and give him a smile...at least I don't have to still worry. However, with the people who say yes and continue where they left off I wonder if they did have contact and just didn't know it. After all milk and eggs are in so many things that people don't even realize.

I guess for right now we will continue to use this method until we feel we've found something more effective. Until them I'm just waiting for the day when people don't have the instinct to engage in physical contact with my child.

I Couldn't Even See It!

Shortly after my son was diagnosed by allergies I went to a resturaunt with a friend for lunch. I thought that it wouldn't be a problem if I just wipe the area in front of him and put him in a high chair that I also would wipe down. I believed that my precautions would be enough to protect my child, after all he wasn't eating at the resturaunt. I gave him some cherrios to eat from a bowl I brought from home and I fed him some butternut squash, also from home, with one of his baby spoons. I really thought that I had things under control. After all he hadn't had a reaction in a week.

My false sense of my son's safety led me to find out how severe his allergies were. After leaving the resturaunt my son had hives around his mouth and was throwing up once more. It was painful to see my son once again in pain. However, it was also very frustrating. I had though that I had protected him well enough I wiped the area with a napkin and water and I had made sure that he didn't eat anything from the resturaunt. It didn't matter. Somehow a trace of dairy or egg on the seemingless clean table or high chair had caused my son to have a reaction.

About a week later my son was playing with a toy, in the car, that had been in the same resturaunt. All of a sudden he threw it across the car. At first I thought it might be his throw the toy so mommy has to pick it up game so I gave it back to him. However, he literally hurled it across the car again as soon as it touched his hands. 15 minutes later my son started throwing up and he had hives again around his mouth. Apparently the toy had been contaminated as well and I couldn't even see that there was anything on it. I am so grateful that my little man knows so quickly that he is allergic to something, this was not the first time he had rejected something with an allergen it.

Nonetheless, even with my gratitude I felt disheartened. How could I protect my son from allergies if I couldn't even see them?!

If It Has an OU D Don't Buy It

For years I kept kosher, although now I don't, so when I found out my son had a milk allergy I figured we could just go parve. Then I found out he also had an egg allergy so we had to be careful with that as well. Nonetheless a helpful tool to shopping for non-dairy products is to look for kosher symbols. There are a variety of them out there. The most famous of them being the OU symbol.

Near whatever kosher symbol there can be a few other abbreviations which can save you a lot of time at the store.

Quick checks:

• If the symbol is accompanied by a D that means the item is Dairy.
• If it is accompanied by a DE it means it was made on Dairy equipment.
• If it says parve that means there is no dairy what so ever inside the product nor was it made on equipment that had processed dairy foods. Therefore, you are safe from milk.
• If the symbol stands alone it usually means that it is either parve or meat. However, it is always wise to check.

I have saved a lot of time in the past few months from reading ingredient lists by just looking for kosher symbols. Many faux dairy products such as soy yogurts and rice cheeses are actually OU D and therefore, I don't even bother reading the ingredients.

It is also important to note that just because one product of food is OU D that does not mean another cannot be parve. For example the other day when I was at the store I was looking for graham crackers for my son. The Kroger brand graham crackers come in three flavors: original, honey and cinnamon. Both the original and honey flavors are OU D while the cinnamon flavor is OU parve. In addition it contains no eggs, thus I was able to get graham crackers for my son.

One peculiar product that stumped both me and my husband are the rice dream "milks". My husband went to the store and bought the one from the refrigeration section home. As I was about to pour it into my pancake recipe I noticed it said OU D. I was quite confused with why a non-dairy drink claiming to be completely dairy free and for vegans would be OU D. I called up the company (for which I'm still waiting for a reply) and also looked on the website. What I found out was their non-refrigerated drinks are all parve while their refrigerated drinks are OU D. I therefore decided not to use the carton my husband bought and went to the store to collect the correct drink. When I got home I compared the ingredients list and the interesting thing is that are exactly the same. Nonetheless, the one from the refrigeration section is considered dairy by the company and the other is not. In other companies I might have thought that they had made a mistake as I did at first, however, after looking at their website they understand Kosher food and do not appear to have made a mistake and must have a reason for labeling the product OU D. Therefore, I will only be buying the parve non-refrigerated one for my family.

If you are interested in seeing a list of kosher symbols to aid you in your shopping click on the following link: http://www.mazornet.com/jewishcl/Kosher/kosherorgs.htm

* It was brought to my attention that some children had an anaphylactic reaction to products marked parve. If that happens I would recommend calling the company that manufactures the product because no parve product should have even trace amounts of dairy. If they do they would be considered Dairy and not parve. People who keep Kosher are very strict about this and they themselves would want the company to correct the mistake. Here is an article that goes into more explanation regarding this topic. http://www.ou.org/kosher/dairy.htm

It's not Just Food!

After reading the books you'll find out that the list of things your child can't have doesn't just stop at food. The reality is that so many things that we use on a daily basis from cleaning detergents, shampoos, soaps, gels, perfumes, make-up, sun screen and more have either milk or eggs in it. Even things we don't encounter have them such has some medical gloves. A good rule of thumb I've learned is that anything that has an ingredients list needs to be checked for allergens.

The great thing is that a lot of companies are now clearly labeling products in plan English if they have an allergen. The bad thing of course is that these non-food items don't usually and a lot of food from outside the United States are also not clearly marked saying "this product contains: milk and eggs" or "this product may contain: milk or eggs" or "this product was produced on a equipment that manufactures products that contain: milk or eggs". Therefore, even if the allergen isn't listed I read the entire ingredients list including the active and inactive ones. If a company of a non-food product has only listed the active ingredients I tend to not buy the product unless I do more research on the web or by calling the company.

We've also learned that some products change and therefore, we can't trust that just because we bought it once that it's ok now. Also sometimes the companies make a mistake, if this happens the alerts you can get from the FAAN newsletter and online are really helpful. (http://www.foodallergy.org/)

When it comes to my sons allergies I've learned to not trust what I knew to be true of the ingredients and to always ask questions.

A List of Questions for the Doctor

Like any parent of a child with a diagnosed medical condition I had a lot of questions. Truth be told I still have a lot of questions. Every time I go to the doctor, which is quite often probably every six weeks or less at this point, I have more questions for the doctor. I've found making lists the best way for me to deal with my never ending well of questions and concerns.

Some of the questions on my first list:

1. When should we administer the Epipen Jr.?
2. What should we do after we give it to him?
3. Can we give more than one dose?
4. How many should we carry on us?
5. When should we just give Benadryl?
6. When will he grow out of his allergies?
7. What are the chances he will grow out of them?
8. Is he allergic to anything else?
9. How do we know what has milk and eggs in it?
10. Are there any resources for parents?
11. Are there any support groups out there?
12. When I have another child will I need to eat differently in order to breastfeed?
13. What are the chances that other children we have will have these allergies?
14. Should we switch to soy formula?

The next time we went to the doctor we began understanding the severity of my sons reactions and therefore we had even more questions.

They were:

1. Are there medications out there that can help him on a daily basis so he doesn't have so many reactions?
2. Does he also have environmental allergies? (At this point he was showing signs he did.)
3. Is it normal to have so many reactions even when we are so careful?
4. How often can he be given Benadryl?
5. Can we preemptively give him Benadryl before we go to places were there is a strong likelihood he could get a reaction?
6. Is Purell enough remove traces of the allergens if we don't have soap or water?
7. Is mouth wash enough to remove them from our mouths?
8. Will the eczema issues continue?
9. What activities can he participate in?
10. Can he attend preschool?
11. Can we go on vacation?

These are just a few of the many questions that have confronted us since discovering his allergies. For many of them we haven't received answers from the doctors but rather we found out ourselves through trial and error what worked and what didn't. The ones that didn't were especially upsetting for me because I had to see my son go through yet another reaction. However, we've learned a lot in the process and have discovered ways to cope with many situations. My biggest lesson has been that we need to be flexible and creative.

Scouring the Books

After leaving the allergists I had a prescription for an Epipen Jr. in one hand and a folder in the other. The folder contained a page on each of his allergies and a name of one and only one organization: The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN). That's it. My son was just diagnosed positively with life threatening allergies to the point that we have to carry around an injection of life saving medication and we got a folder.

I was excited of course to check out the network and although it's really useful for many things, more on that later, the reality is that for a parent that just found out about the allergy it leaves much to be desired. I wanted information: what is the likelihood he would out grow his allergies, what are the chances of him getting other ones, what support groups are out there, what do I feed him, are there any good recipe books out there, what research is being done, how did other people cope, and most important how did it effect our daily lives and my sons childhood?

My husband and I started at the library and just read book after book on allergies. Most of them are general to all food allergies and spend honestly more time usually on peanuts and wheat. I found the egg and milk sections lacking and honestly looking back not so useful for helping me adjust my life and learn what I needed to to protect my son. I did learn somethings of course such as how much stuff in our house and in other places contain eggs and milk. Nonetheless, I felt almost more helpless after reading many of the books. This is not to say that I wouldn't read them all again and I would recommend to check them out. At the bottom of this post I have included a list of books out their on the subject.

I also began to read a lot of recipe books because having a son with these allergies means that almost every restaurant would be off limits to him as well as many already made or almost made foods. For me I didn't find these books as useful as I'm really attached to my recipes and I found that many of the foods weren't what we usually ate. Food is big in our family and I wanted my son to experience the same foods I had as a child and adult. Nonetheless, these books can be very helpful to many families. I've also included a list of cookbooks below. In addition there is a great link to the Post Punk Kitchen which has great vegan recipes for faux eggs and other great ideas. In the future I will be posting my own recipes that I've converted to be both dairy and egg free.

Books

Cookbooks

These are a great place to start. For more suggestions check out the FAAN website www.foodallergy.org, check out your local library, or visit www.amazon.com.

Thank Goodness for the Bad Tasting Formula

I'm a parent who tries everything prepackaged that I give to my son. After all I haven't eaten this kind of food for more than a quarter of a century I figure I should give it all a try. After trying the Nutramigen I nearly threw up and I reassessed my earlier thought that normal enfamil was the worst tasting formula ever. My son at first wasn't even willing to drink the stuff because of its taste. We had to camouflage it with juice beginning with half and half and finally making it to a solution of 8 oz. formula 1/2 oz. juice. Eventually we were able to wean him of that and now he drinks it without any taste enhancer. I've relearned through my son that you learn to live with what you have and thank goodness we have this formula.

Nutramigen has transformed my son. Before my son was diagnosed he was extremely weak and although he wanted to crawl and could do the army crawl he wouldn't go very far at any given point. About 2 days after being on the formula he began army crawling all over the house. It really felt like a miracle to me, to my husband it was just logical science, but to me it really was a miracle as was everything else that seemed to happen after we switched him on to formula and food that didn't hurt him.

Since my son had figured out he could turn over he would roll over as soon as he was in bed and curl himself up into a little ball; any noise, any at all, would wake him up on the spot. I couldn't even go in and check him in the middle of the night without him waking up and I most definitely couldn't move him from one place to another if he had been sleeping. I couldn't even snuggle him to bed, as I had done when he was very little, he would just want to be left alone. People advised me to run a vacuum cleaner under his bed to get him used to noise so that he would learn not to wake up in the middle of the night just because he heard the dogs walking around the house. There were also other issues, like the fact that he screamed bloody murder when we tried to put him in his stroller or car seat. Once he was in it he would usually calm down when we were moving but, as soon as the car would stop or we would pause in the stroller he would start howling again. The only thing that would calm him down in the car was to listen to music, and very specific music at that, my son is picky. I must have listened to this one song exclusively for one month straight every time we were in the car. My husband and I just thought this was who he was. After all we were told babies wake up in the middle of night, some babies don't like their car seats...that's just how it goes.

Well it wasn't and that wasn't just who he was. Once we switched to the Nutramigen and made sure he didn't eat anything with milk and eggs he started sleeping sprawled out on his back and side, he slept through music and us banging around the house, I could move him from the car to his crib and he wouldn't even open his eyes, he stopped crying in the car every time I put him in the car seat and he didn't care that the car would stop. I was even able to change the music. This to me was the most shocking part. All this time I had thought that this was my son's personality just to find out that what we thought was his personality was him in extreme pain all the time. I was surprised honestly that he didn't cry more often than he did. My son truly is a trooper.

After discovering all the things that had been effected by his allergies I was really angry at myself that I hadn't been more stubborn with the doctors and insisted without taking a no that they test my son for allergies. However, I've learned that allergies are considered rare and because of this are one of the last things that the doctors will test. In addition to that apparently many parents feel their children have allergies when they are just intolerances and therefore, the doctors don't take the parents always so seriously because the parent "diagnosis" is usually wrong. I wasn't but I could have been and based off of the statistics I probably was in their mind. My husband has been really good about insisting that I did everything that I could have for our son at the time and that I was constantly at the doctor trying to figure out what was wrong. I've come to feel that he is right. However, I've also learned that if I'm not happy with the answer and feel that there is more to it that I will be more insistent in the future after all I'm my son's voice right now and if I don't speak for him no body else will.

Where's My Coupon?

My son, like many children with a milk allergy, was put on a special formula called Nutramigen after he was diagnosed. His doctor did not want to put him on soy formula in case he developed a similar allergy to soy. There are technically two options that are over the counter that are out there for hypoallergenic formula: Nutramigen and Alimentum. However, there are also ones that you can get via perscription. I don't know much about them as our doctor for whatever reason chose Nutramigen and gave us a few samples to take home. Those samples we found out shortly was like giving us $50.00.

It turns out that Nutramigen and Alimentum are the two most expensive formulas on the Market. They only come in the 16 oz. cans with powder or a few ready-to-feed options that are even more expensive. I've found that on average Nutramigen is $24.00 for the powder can and that Alimentum is about a dollar more. These prices are double that of normal formula. In addition to that I haven't found any special promotions or coupons anywhere for these two formulas. I have found however, that certain stores are cheaper than others. Babies-r-us near our house for example sells Nutramigen for $23.49, our local grocery store for $24.11 and Wal-mart and Target for $25.00. I've also discovered that if you go to less affluent neighborhoods or less chi-chi grocery stores you can find Nutramigen for $23.00, which is the cheapest I've found it. Those prices might not sound like a huge difference but considering we go through 1 can every 4 days it really adds up quite quickly.

When we first realized how expensive Nutramigen was we decided to try and find online stores that sold it cheaper. What we found out was legitimate stores online don't reduce the price and on top of it you have to pay the shipping and handling fees. There are places online that aren't reputable that do sell it for less expensive but buyer beware. There is a warning on every Nutramigen can to check the bottom for a special stamp "NUTRML". Apparently, there are companies manufacturing "Nutramigen" and packaging them with Enfamil labels; but they are actually just regular infant formula with milk repackaged and sold as hypoallergenic. Therefore, if the price sounds to good to be true it could be.

Sometimes the Doctors Don't Know

In the middle of January of this year my son was diagnosed with both milk and egg allergies. However, that simple statement wasn't so simple to come by for my family and my then 8 month old son. Finding out that my son had allergies was a long process that began before we even suspected that he had any. Around the time that my son was 5 months old he stopped gaining weight. At first his doctor wasn't concerned, after all he was born at 10 Ibs. and both my husband and I are pretty average in stature in addition when I was 6 months old I too stopped gaining weight. The doctor told us to just monitor him and wait...so we did.
As we waited our son continued showing signs that he wasn't growing. I was breastfeeding at the time that all of this was occurring and we spoke to the doctor also about our feelings that our son wasn't drinking enough and that he wasn't interested in drinking water or formula to supplement his liquids. The doctor recommended that we supplement him with yogurt. This was around Thanksgiving and we visited my brother for the holiday. While we were gone we noticed our son wasn't feeling so well, however, we weren't in our environment so we thought he was just having a hard time adjusting to the new place. About four days after he started eating the yogurt and a few days into our trip 2 very hellish months began when he began projectile vomiting. We called our doctor who suggested we see our nephew's doctor in the area. We asked this doctor if our son had an allergy and we were informed that it wasn't related to the yogurt at all and that he just had a virus. This diagnosis was later confirmed by our doctor when we returned home for our vacation.
This was the beginning of the "virus" period. We went to one doctors appointment after the other: including a Gastrointestinal pediatric specialist. We were told that our son had a virus that could last up to 4 months and that his stomach had probably been partially paralyzed. This was the explanation for our son's continued vomiting. It also led the doctor to prescribe our son prevacid. In the meantime our son was no longer just not gaining weight but he was losing it. The worst point was when he lost a pound in a month and went below the growth charts. We began going to the doctor just to weigh him. I felt desperate to find out what was going on with my son. I still was suspicious that he had an allergy to milk because he wouldn't eat any plain cheeses or pasta with cheese and he refused to eat the yogurts. Nonetheless, the doctors still thought that he didn't have any allergies.
Around the beginning of the new year I realized that my milk had dried up and that he needed formula. Unfortunately, he didn't want to drink the formula. We thought it was the type of bottle we were using so we tried different ones, then we thought it was the type of formula, we even tasted them thinking that maybe it was the taste, so we went from Enfamil to Simlac (it tasted better). He still wouldn't drink it though. After 2 days of not drinking anything he finally drank 8 oz. of formula.
I put him down for a nap. When he woke up an hour later his face was completely swollen to the point that we couldn't see his inch long eyelashes. His face was covered in hives. When I unzipped his pajamas he had hives everywhere and his entire body was also swollen, his stomach was three times its normal size. He was also sneezing and coughing a bit. We called the doctor who told us to give him benadryl and just have him come in to the office in the morning. Now we know whe should have rushed him to the ER.

The doctors finally agreed that my son had a milk allergy. Thus, we were sent to the allergist to do scratch tests which is how we found out that he also had allergies to eggs too.
Unfortunately, things didn't get easier just because we had a diagnosis. This blog is meant to be for all those parents who just found out about their child's allergies or who have known it for a while. It is for those parents who would like support and to know that they aren't going through this whole experience alone.