Welcome!

Hi! Welcome to my Blog!!! I hope that this will be a spot for parents of children with food allergies to come to share advice, to ask questions, and to support others. I also hope that this will be a place that teachers, other parents, restaurant managers, day care providers, grandparents, bus drivers, ANYBODY who has questions or want more information about food allergies can come to.

As an introduction, let me tell you a bit about myself. I have lived with food allergies as long as I can remember, however wasn't officially diagnosed until I was almost 30 years old, when I had an anaphylatic reaction to Tree Nuts. My daughter had her first anaphylatic reaction when whe was almost 18 months old. Her dad had given her a handful of Cheerios and she immediately had trouble breathing, broke out in hives, and her eyes swelled shut. I gave her a double-dose of Benadryl and rushed her to the doctor's office, where he thought she was having an allergic reaction. I thought about this for a moment and remembered that her dad had eaten peanut butter earlier in the morning, and the residual oils on his hand must have transferred the oils to the cereal she was eating. Allergy testing confirmed a Peanut Allergy.

My son Christopher's Soy Allergy was a different story. He seemed to have a stuffy nose from the day he was born, and had severe eczema. He had repeated staph infections of the skin, along with stomachaches. Allergy testing revealed a Soy allergy, along with pollens, dust, mold, cats, dogs, & feathers. Fortunately, his skin improved and he outgrew his Soy allergy, but the environmental allergies remain.

I encourage you to share your stories, ask questions, and post information and links of interest to others. Above all, let's do this to support one another in this world surrounded by allergens.