Great News - Teen with Anaphylaxis Saved

After such sad news of two deaths due to anaphylaxis (school party, soccer party), it is wonderful to hear of a life being saved. The teen's epipen had not been administered properly; and Nanuet Ambulance Corps had only recently been cleared by the state to use Epipen! Thank goodness there is a happy ending to this story.

Wow. I'm back!

After working hard for a year growing our local support group, it's time to turn back to writing less formally about Food Allergies, and living with Food Allergies. Watch this space!

Still nutty.. but last blog entry..

It is so hard to know what is useful or interesting to post.  And there are so many food-allergy-related blogs out there these days.  Some interesting, others BTDT.

Avoiding nuts, research on nut allergies, and keeping my child safe is and always will be a big part of my life.  Examining where I want to spend my time, I've decided blogging (at least blogging individually) isn't for me any longer.

What I want to do is to try to improve things for my local food-allergy community.   I began this journey a year ago by co-founding the SF Food Allergy Support Group, and this is where I would like to spend more time.

So.. if you're in the SF Bay Area, have food allergies (or knows someone who does), and you'd like help, support, or to contribute to our group, please look us up!  We're www.sffoodallergy.org, and we'd love to have you.  Please watch that space!

Peanut and Treenut free Cookie Mix!

Who-hoo! At last a nut, dairy and egg-free chocolate-chip cookie mix! From Cherrybrook kitchen, and the PBS Kid's series Arthur! The product will include a story about Binky's food allergies.  I love baking, and since having a child with food allergies have developed and found some wonderful recipes, but YAY! I don't HAVE to make oookies from scratch anymore!

Now to the local supermarket!  Will let you know what I (and my kids) think of them :)

Spread the word.. and petition your govenor to proclaim Food Allergy Awareness Week in Your State!

May 10th - 16th is FAAN's 12th annual Food Allergy Awareness Week! Spread the word!

FAAN also needs our help to get all 50 states on board to proclaim Food Allergy Awareness Week. There are only 3 states who have already done this: Connecticut, Illinois, and Nebraska. If you would like your state to proclaim FAAW, you can request a proclamation by sending a letter to your governor, by e-mail, or by regular mail.

Personally, I can't believe California isn't already on this list! I'm going to spread the word any way I can, and try to get my state, California, to proclaim this important week by emailing my govenor, Govenor Schwarzenegger. Will you contact yours?

What else can we do to raise awareness for Food Allergies during this week? Talk to our schools, daycare, our elected representatives, or even raise funds for food allergies and donate to your favorite food allergy charity. FAAN also has a lot of downloadable posters, coloring books etc that can help you do this.

Lets spread the word together!

Nut free chocolate at Trader Joes?

I usually pick up candy at TJs, read the label, then put the food down because of PN or Nut warnings. This time I hit a payload!

They have Dark chocolate that does not have a tree nut warning!! Whoo hoo! It is made by Chocovic SA, and actually tastes smooth, fruity.

The allergen-related part of the label says 'Does not contain flavorings, preservatives or colouring. May contain traces of milk. Nut free.'

My local TJs have the yellow label Guaranda and the orange label Ocumare. Yum!

Status Quo

Our trip to the allergist went smoothly.

Our results are pretty much the same as last year. Which is good, right? His IgE for PN was not rocketing higher, and his Nut IgEs were low. Our doc continues to recommend avoiding all nuts, including products with 'may contains' and 'made in a facility' warnings; he hopes L will someday outgrow nuts (fingers crossed!). I had hoped we might be a little less strict following this, but no.

I keep hoping they develop and standardise Oral Immunotherapy, or even Xolair!