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!

Impatient, and yearning for the improbable

This week my child will have his yearly allergy check-in. He had his blood taken last week, and on Thursday we go to his allergist to see what's changed, if anything.

For some bizarre reason, after dealing with PN allergy and avoiding tree nuts for 4.5 years, I want it to go away! I want our doctor to tell us L's IgE has dropped, that he is definitely not allergic to any tree nuts. It is hard to understand why, at this stage, I am yearning for him to be free of tree nut allergy. Maybe because he has a suspected nut allergy, and I want him (and us) to have more freedom in what and where he can eat safely? But why now? I just thought I was beyond all that dreaming.. but it seems not. The yearning is still here (it was hidden deep for 4 years).

The yearning to be free of dealing with allergies is also seeping into my awareness in the form of peanut sub-lingual immunotherapy.. you know, building up tolerance to the allergen by eating a minuscule amount of the allergen, and increasing the dose weekly until (hopefully) the allergic persons body learns to tolerate the allergen. So many people both local and international have helpfully told me about, or sent me emails with links describing the great new breakthrough research results in the UK and US, which shows many children respond well to SLIT.

I think all this has built up hope for something better. I want my child to be one of the children who outgrows, or can be treated!

To be sure! Little Rae's.. but big me!

On her blog, Gab, a good friend of mine pointed out the nut-free valentines cookies were available at Whole Foods. What she didn't say, was how addictive they are!

Little Rae's bakery, in Seattle have wonderful peanut and nut-free cookies.. They currently have really cute Shamrock sugar cookies! Look!
OMG, they taste *sooo good*.

Little Rae's is nut free, because their president has a nut allergy. How do I know this? Well, I wrote a glowing thank-you email to the bakery, and got this lovey response back:

"Thanks for writing. I’m glad you liked our nut free cookies. I love hearing about the kids who get to have a “store bought” cookie where there were none before. When I was growing up the allergy was barely taken seriously so I get a lot of satisfaction out of running a nut free bakery for all those people like myself."

The note goes on to say that in California, we ought to be able to get more of Little Rae's wonderful nut-free products:

"Currently you should be able to get our scones look for the peach Passionfruit our best seller and reason for our existence, “everyday cookies” (choc chip, oatmeal raisin, Snickerdoodle and our fabulous Ginger Twinkle) as well as our decorated shortbread cookies."

I keep thinking I ought to write back and ask which other suppliers have their scones.. but although Rae's might be Little, consuming lots of their mouth-watering product would not leave me in the same situation!

Yum-oh!

Seeing Red! Poor peanuts indeed!

I am continuously shocked over how, in the midst of an economic recession (depression?), our country fighting in two wars, school funding being reduced, healthcare and social security in a shambles etc etc, that people have nothing better to do than whine about restricting peanuts at school.

I guess it speaks to how lucky those people are.. they don't need to worry about their children dying, simply because another child wanted to eat a PB&J sandwich at school rather than at home. I guess they also don't have any problems with healthcare, unemployment, falling school standards either. Lucky them.

And one thing I find constantly amusing - if I didn't I'd want to scream - how can people compare food, which is everywhere all the time, to beesting allergies? And talk about banning flowers and bees? Do they have any idea that *it is because of all the vigilance in schools* enacted by understanding and informed people, that more of our children are not dying? I guess we could test this theory out by bringing peanuts into every classroom every day, and not have any precautions, and see whether the fatality rate increases.

Funnily enough, its not something I'm willing to try. And I bet, those people complaining would have exactly the same opinion if they stood in my shoes.

The people posting their supportive comments (supporting a peanut?) also indicate their lack of understanding of the issues involved. But I guess these days you don't actually have to do any research or have any knowledge of a problem in order to write about it, and be published.

Tsunami?

Can you believe it?

After all of the hype in the last few months regarding how us over-protective parents are overstating the incidence of food allergies... apparently there is now a TSUNAMI of peanut-allergic kids - at least in Australia.

Expert warns of food allergy 'generation'
According to allergy specialist Dr Raymond Mullins, his study issued today reveals the incidence of peanut allergy has more than doubled ...

Peanut allergy doubles, "tsunami" of allergic kids
A potentially fatal peanut allergy is being detected in Australian children at more than double the rate of less than a decade ...

"
"The research confirmed it was a "real increase", Dr Mullins said, and not solely linked to rising parental concerns. "Severity hasn't changed, which dispels the myth that it is worried parents coming out of the woodwork with mild allergic kids," he said. "We weren't seeing it ten years ago - this is a real increase."
"

For those of you whom don't believe that this is really happening..it is! Life-threatening food allergies are becoming more and more common-place; to a neighbour, friend, child, grandchild, and yes, maybe even to you.

Us FA parents aren't overreacting, we're just on the forefront of a new - dare I say it - trend? in food allergies. Or maybe Tsunami is a better word. Nah.. what about New Generation.. maybe we could call it Gen-A?

:-)

Return to the blogosphere

I'd like to blog again! Its been an age. Lots of things going on in my family's life. So if there are any of you out there that think what I write is worth reading.. apologies! And I hope you'll forgive me!

Recently there has also been a plethora of OpEds out there.. people who want to have a positive voice about food allergies.

Others that want to shout them down. It's almost become fashionable to attract attention by writing food-allergy flame opinion pieces. Unfortunately, most of them are uninformed, sensationalistic opinions, with nothing much to recommend them. It seems to me that these people's aim is get their 5 minutes of fame, at the expense of others.

Its also hard to find something truely original to write. There are *so many* bloggers out there who are writing about food allergies.. its hard not to be repetetive.

Anyways.. I'm ba-ack.. Hopefully with something worthwhile for you to read!