Raising kids with allergies is a real challenge. When a child is diagnosed with an allergy, often parents are uncertain with many unanswered questions. What is an allergy ? What are my child’s exact allergies ? What type of allergy testing is appropriate in my case? How do I understand the skin test results? Can I cook with so many limitations? How do I supervise out of my house? Will my child feel isolated? Is there another approach in medicine besides just managing symptoms?
These are just some of the questions parents face when their child is labeled an allergic kid. Now where do you begin? Let’s start by defining what an allergy is and the types of allergies that exist.
An Allergy is a disorder of the immune system. It is characterized by excessive activation of certain white blood cells resulting in an extreme inflammatory response. Common allergic reactions include eczema, hives, hay fever, and asthma attacks.
Mild allergies like hay fever are highly prevalent in the human population and cause symptoms such itchiness and runny nose. Allergies can affect other conditions such as asthma. In some people, severe allergies to environmental or dietary allergens or to medication may result in life-threatening anaphylactic reactions and potentially death.
Even though your kids may have one or more of the above conditions, and possibly a severe allergy, nevertheless with your help they could be healthy and safe like any other child. With some proactive measures you can make sure your child is happy and thriving at home and with friends in school.
Ok so here is a million dollar question. How do I feed my allergic child?
My child has numerous food allergies including milk , eggs and fish.
These are the main ones but we also notice some reactions to foods like soy , nuts sometimes even beef and chicken.
The blood test showed positive to basically everything and the reason for it is clear – body is so inflamed that it shows reaction to practically everything. Now what should I feed my child ?
Aftervisiting many allergists , dermatologists etc.we learned about two totally opposite approaches to this situation.
#1 Keep the child away from everything , I mean literally everything . Let your child just have rice and a rice drink. Or even better, just start him with pure anti-allergy formula (like Neocate ) and then little by little add more foods. Just one new food once every couple of weeks and see the reaction . This way you will be sure what’s your child allergic to and what’s not.
#2 Give your child basically everything to eat . Let him react here or there , let him get a bit red a bit itchy . As long as he is not having a severe reaction . So lets say you know your child is highly allergic to milk and fish then just keep him away from milk and fish but give him chicken , beef ,potatoes, soy etc. even if he will get some redness or itching.
Now lets analyze #1 vs #2 . in #1 you guarantee no allergic reaction , but it’s a very slow progress. Meanwhile your child is suffering without any nutrition’s and vitamins . #2 he does get all the nutrition’s but he constantly gets minor allergic reactions. What is more important ? Is it more important for child’s grows to have more nutrition’s or is it more important to keep a 100% clear from any possible allergies ?
And here is another million dollar question. Is it better to eat mildly allergic foods and this way the immune system will get used of it , or eating even mildly allergic foods will only trigger the allergies to get much worse ?
Is it better to stay 100 % clear from any possible food allergies( this way the immune system will get stronger) or may be, not letting your immune system deal with allergies will only make one more sensitive to allergies .