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Drunken Noodles

  It can be difficult sometimes to cook Asian cuisines if you are allergic to soy, wheat, fish and shell fish. However, if you occasionally ..... Read more

Cranberry Orange Waffle

  Growing up in Lille, Northern part of France where is at the boarder of Belgium, my husband loved waffles as a kid. Since our son can not ..... Read more

Steamed Dumplings

  Dumplings are so versatile that you can basically make whatever kind of filling you want, meat, vegetables, seafood, combination of the above as long as you ..... Read more

Quinoa Crepes

  Before I met my husband, I had never thought that there are many similarities in Chinese and French cooking.  One of them is crepes.  To most ..... Read more

Rice Krispy Treats

  Although my son has a lot of food allergies, I don't want him to feel left out at school when other kids eat certain food.  At ..... Read more

New Study on Gluten Sensitivity

CalendarIcon March 16 2011 | CalendarIcon Author: allergickidmom

My pilates instructor was complaining to me the other day that she has been experiencing body aches because she ate some girls scout's cookies the day before.  She mentioned that she has been avoiding gluten in her diet for quite a while.  The gluten-avoidance diet really helped her manage pain.  I was really intrigued by her statement.  Before I even had time to do any research on this topic, it just happened that on March 15, 2011, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled: "Study Sheds Light on Gluten Sensitivity". This study turns out to be supporting her suspicion.

 

In this article, it referenced a new study published in the Journal of BMC Medicine which finds that "gluten can set off a distinct reaction in the intestines and the immune system, even in people who don't have celiac disease." According to the study, gluten sensitivity does exist.  The study indicates that other than wheat allergy and celiac disease, there are cases of gluten reactions in which neither involving an allergic reaction nor triggering an autoimmune response.  There are more than 100 symptoms linked to gluten sensitivity.  Among those, it includes headaches, fatigue, IBS-stomach problem, etc.

 

The number of people who have celiac disease are on the rise.  The underlying cause of gluten sensitivity and celiac disease are unkown at this point; however, there has been speculation that increased protein content in wheat during the agricultural process may have caused this problem.

 
A copy of the Wall Street Jounral article can be found here.  Also click here for an abstract of the study referenced in the WSJ article.


AllergicKidMom
 

Skin Prick or Blood Test?

CalendarIcon March 09 2011 | CalendarIcon Author: allergickidmom

 

If you are a parent of an allergic child, you may have experienced the frustration or are confused with the test methods for diagnosing food allergies.  The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease ("NIAID") published guidelines in December 2010 to establish consensus and consistency in diagnostic criteria and management practices.  It indicates that neither the blood test nor the skin prick test ("SPT") alone is sufficient to diagnose food allergies. A copy of the guidelines can be found here

Although I have heard in the past about potential unreliable test results from the SPT or blood test, I would have never thought in a million years that I could witness myself how inaccurate the blood test result could be until I took my son for a peanut challenge at Johns Hopkins Pediatric Allergy and Immunology Center last week. The reason why Dr. Robert Wood's office wanted us to schedule a peanut challenge was because the blood test shows very low exposure to peanuts and my son tolerated peanuts when he was two years old.

Approximately five minutes after injesting about 1/8 tsp of peanut butter,my son's upper lip started to swell. Immediately, he was given a dose of Benedryal which did not last long. Hives stated to develop, followed by vomiting, shortness of breath, and wheezing.More medicine was given; however, the reaction came back even stronger after each medicine was given. Three doses of Benedryal, two EpiPens, one dose of steroid and seven hours later, he still had hives all over his little body, although the lumpiness of the hives started to retreat. I was shocked to see the amount of histamine released and the intensity of reaction developed within very short period of time. It was a horrific experience to go through. As a mom, it was heartbreaking to see what her child had to suffer.
After experiencing what happened, I am really trying to understand why the test result could be this inaccurate. After reading the NIAID guidelines, I am still not very clear what steps need to be performed before a food challenge. The NIAID guideline indicates that a food challenge is recommended for diagnosing food allergies in addition to understanding medical history, skin prick test, etc. Given my son's several life-threatening allergies, should a skin prick test be performed before the food challenge just to confirm the presence and the severity of the reaction by observing the wheal size. Section 4.2.2.1 of the NIAID guidelines indicates that "SPTs effectively detect the presence of sIgE, but many patients have sIgE without clinical FA. Compared with oral food challenges, SPTs have low specificity and low positive predictive value for making an initial diagnosis of FA......in a patient with confirmed FA, an SPT is valuable in identifying the food(s) responsible for IgE-medicated FA. In the clinical setting, when compared with oral food challenges, SPTs have high sensitivity and high negative predictive values."


AllergicKidMom
 

Welcome to mykidfoodallergies.com

CalendarIcon September 13 2010 | CalendarIcon Author: allergickidmom

 

Dear Reader,

Welcome to my blog!

This website is dedicated to my beloved son, Sébastien who was diagnosed with multiple food allergies when he was one. This website is devoted to those parents whose kids suffer from food allergies like my son. It is also for those who have food allergies and other medical conditions which require special diet, such as diabetes.

If you are a parent who just found out about your kid's allergies and don't even know where to start, I hope the "Where to Shop" and "Resource" sections will make your life a little easier in finding allergy-free ingredients and allergy-related research. If you are a parent who has been cooking allergy-friendly food for a while, you may want to try out the hypo-allergenic recipes I posted on this website. All recipes posted here are free of ALL eight common allergens, that is, wheat, dairy, egg, soy, fish, shell fish, peanut and tree nut. You can find most of the ingredients used in the recipes on this website and those included in the "Where to Shop" section at the Whole Foods store. More recipes and items in the "Where to Shop" section are coming soon.

I encourage you to register to take full advantage of our blog. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

Thank you for your support and happy cooking!

AllergicKidMom