Caring For Your Child With Severe Food Allergies

Understanding and Learning to Live Well with Food Allergies Considering that severe allergic reactions can be life-threatening, parents often find that protecting children can be a daunting task-trying to make sure they are safe, while still creating a sense of normalcy as they grow up. But it can be done. Sorting the truth from the myths and misunderstandings, Caring for Your Child with Severe Food Allergies presents not only pertinent facts but, more important, it helps families cope with the emotional aspects of raising a child at risk for severe food reactions. With compassion and insight, Lisa Cipriano Collins blends her own experiences raising a child with severe peanut and tree-nut allergies with practical observations, interviews with parents, and data from recent medical studies. By learning how to reduce risks while promoting a child's normal emotional development, parents can address the needs of their allergic child and his or her siblings, as well as their own needs-and work toward a happy, healthy family. Caring for Your Child with Severe Food Allergies covers: * Identifying allergies * Working with schools * Restaurant and travel concerns * Encouraging independence * Finding treatment * Safety risks and solutions * Helping your child help himself * Identifying ingredients * Making an emergency kit * Finding support * Developing community awareness

Understanding and Learning to Live Well with Food Allergies Considering that severe allergic reactions can be life-threatening, parents often find that protecting children can be a daunting task-trying to make sure they are safe, while still creating a sense of normalcy as they grow up. But it can be done. Sorting the truth from the myths and misunderstandings, Caring for Your Child with Severe Food Allergies presents not only pertinent facts but, more important, it helps families cope with the emotional aspects of raising a child at risk for severe food reactions. With compassion and insight, Lisa Cipriano Collins blends her own experiences raising a child with severe peanut and tree-nut allergies with practical observations, interviews with parents, and data from recent medical studies. By learning how to reduce risks while promoting a child's normal emotional development, parents can address the needs of their allergic child and his or her siblings, as well as their own needs-and work toward a happy, healthy family. Caring for Your Child with Severe Food Allergies covers: Identifying allergies Working with schools Restaurant and travel concerns Encouraging independence Finding treatment Safety risks and solutions Helping your child help himself Identifying ingredients Making an emergency kit Finding support Developing community awareness

Everything you need to know to look after kids with food allergy Managing food allergy is vital for the safety of kids in your care. The best defence against a serious allergic reaction is knowledge, and this book provides you with everything you need to know, from prevention and diagnosis through to caring for kids at home, school or away on holidays. Look after your child in your home and on the go — organise your home and make travel plans that cater for your child's needs Provide a safe environment at school or the childcare centre — set up your school or centre to manage allergies with confidence Prepare your child to take responsibility for a food allergy — ensure your child knows about problem foods Know when allergic reactions are serious — be prepared to treat and manage anaphylaxis Get to grips with the difference between types of food allergy — identify immediate and delayed food allergies Understand why allergy rates are on the rise — access the latest research on what causes allergies, and how to avoid them Prepare for allergy testing — learn how your child is tested and how you can get involved Look into future treatments — get a grasp on new allergy treatments and possible cures Open the book and find: Clear instructions for using EpiPens and Anapens Simple explanations about different types of food allergy Information about how to recognise and treat allergic reactions Sample emergency action plans The latest research on finding a cure for food allergy Key lessons to teach children with food allergy Suggestions for food replacements Websites to access further support Learn to: Keep the home, classroom and childcare centre safe Show others how to care for kids with food allergy Educate kids about helping their friends and themselves

All the answers parents need. Keeping kids safe takes vigilance. But when your child has food allergies, the challenge is greater and you worry that much more. As a food-allergy mom (and someone seriously allergic herself), author Mireille Schwartz has been through it all. Now, in this clear, reassuring guide she helps you get a handle on food allergies, establish new routines, and restore peace and order to family life. You'll learn to: Spot the signs and symptoms of an allergic reaction * Navigate testing and diagnosis * Decipher ingredient labels, keeping an eye out for "hidden" allergens * Allergy-proof your whole home-not just the kitchen * Create an emergency kit and an allergy action plan * Make school a safe and enjoyable environment * Find lunchbox substitutions your kid will like * Deal with restaurants, playdates, birthday parties, holidays, and other group celebrations * Plan for safe travels- from summer camp to family getaways * And more From protecting your child to teaching them to take care of themselves, When Your Child Has Food Allergies covers it all so your life can get back to normal.

Over the past 20 years, public concerns have grown in response to the apparent rising prevalence of food allergy and related atopic conditions, such as eczema. Although evidence on the true prevalence of food allergy is complicated by insufficient or inconsistent data and studies with variable methodologies, many health care experts who care for patients agree that a real increase in food allergy has occurred and that it is unlikely to be due simply to an increase in awareness and better tools for diagnosis. Many stakeholders are concerned about these increases, including the general public, policy makers, regulatory agencies, the food industry, scientists, clinicians, and especially families of children and young people suffering from food allergy. At the present time, however, despite a mounting body of data on the prevalence, health consequences, and associated costs of food allergy, this chronic disease has not garnered the level of societal attention that it warrants. Moreover, for patients and families at risk, recommendations and guidelines have not been clear about preventing exposure or the onset of reactions or for managing this disease. Finding a Path to Safety in Food Allergy examines critical issues related to food allergy, including the prevalence and severity of food allergy and its impact on affected individuals, families, and communities; and current understanding of food allergy as a disease, and in diagnostics, treatments, prevention, and public policy. This report seeks to: clarify the nature of the disease, its causes, and its current management; highlight gaps in knowledge; encourage the implementation of management tools at many levels and among many stakeholders; and delineate a roadmap to safety for those who have, or are at risk of developing, food allergy, as well as for others in society who are responsible for public health.

If you had an allergy so severe that accidentally eating a forbidden food could kill you in minutes--as you gasp for breath, your throat and tongue swell shut, your blood pressure drops and organs fail--how would it change your life, and your relationship to food? For people with food-induced anaphylaxis, the severest form of allergic response, simply eating in restaurants, accepting invitations to dinner, going on overnight field trips, or traveling through foreign countries means facing one's mortality with every meal. In this book, Mark S. Ferrara weaves history, science, and psychology to recount the story of his struggles with allergic asthma and a life-threatening allergy to nuts--and his difficulties living and working in the Far East and Near East--to show how the quest for self-actualization can lead to an acceptance of transience that borders on the mystical. Along the way, he guides parents in keeping food-allergic children safe at home and at school and offers strategies that adolescents and adults may use to negotiate social spaces involving food. He explains how survivors of anaphylaxis can cope with the sometimes-irrational fears of food that follow that traumatic experience, so they may live happy, healthy, meaningful lives.

For children with food allergies, eating—one of the basic functions of life—can be a nightmare. Children who suffer or become dangerously ill after eating peanuts, seafood, milk, eggs, wheat, or a host of other foods require constant vigilance from caring, concerned parents, teachers, and friends. In this empathetic and comprehensive guide, Dr. Scott H. Sicherer, a specialist in pediatric food allergies, gives parents the information they need to manage their children’s health and quality of life. He describes why children develop food allergy, the symptoms of food allergy (affecting the skin, the gastrointestinal tract, and the respiratory system), and the role of food allergy in behavioral problems and developmental disabilities. Parents will learn how to recognize emergency situations, how to get the most out of a visit with an allergist, what allergy test results mean, and how to protect their children—at home, at school, at summer camp, and in restaurants. Informative, compassionate, and practical, this guide will be indispensable for parents, physicians, school nurses, teachers, and everyone else who cares for children with food allergies.