My child will be starting kindergarten and apparently there is a child in the class that has peanut allergies. The school is requiring that all parents sign an acknowledgment that your child will not bring any peanut containing food to class/school. I am fine with cooperating by not packing any peanut foods for my child but I am weary of having to sign a document that can potentially lead to lawsuits, etc. down the road. Any insight into this matter would be appreciated. I don’t want to start the relationship with the school on bad terms by not signing something that may just be a formality.
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K my daughter is 13 months and we’ve been dealing with bad diarrhea since Thanksgiving! We had her **** tested once already and everything came back normal, we just took some more in to have it tested again, and waiting to get in with a ped. Allergist. She had diarrhea that smells worse then normal bms and sometimes mucusy. We have to wash her bedding and give her baths all the time, due to “blow outs”
My question is if you’ve been through this with your kids what were there symptoms????
Thanks
She’s been on soy. And we’ve been going rounds with the doc. We are waiting on her 2nd stool sample to get back and waiting to get an apt with a specialist.

Getting children to eat is a problem you may encounter from an early age through even the teen years. In younger children, eating problems can be either simple food preferences or a power struggle.

If you feel it’s truly not a simple food preference, but is, in fact, your child stubbornly trying to control you, try to make certain a child doesn’t feel he/she can control you. Do this by making sure the child stays at the table until at least sampling the food you’ve prepared. Acceptable behavior may, then, result in a reward, such as a favorite dessert.

In the case of a simple food preference, we all know the situation: left to their own devices, our children would choose pizza, or macaroni-and-cheese, or French fries, or some other food product they crave three meals a day. Vegetables are probably something just short of toxic waste in the eyes of your kids, but you still want children to eat well-balanced, nutritionally sound meals.

Instead of simply banishing your child’s favorite foods from the menu, however, try sneaking in some healthy additives. According to one study, nearly 60 percent of children eat only one fruit or vegetable a day, but you can change that.

With pizza, for example, whether homemade or otherwise, add extra tomatoes, red peppers, broccoli, pineapple, and basil leaves. And, when making your own dough, try whole wheat as a healthier alternative.

For Mac-and-cheese, just mix in some vegetables such as carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. And by making them “stealth vegetables,” perhaps chopping or shredding them up so they can’t be as easily recognized, you’ve just given your fussy eaters a healthier meal.

With hot dogs, think whole wheat buns again. And think of serving them “Chicago style” – topped with things like onions, tomatoes, tomato slices, and peppers.

Spaghetti & meatballs is another kid favorite that you can doctor up with extra tomatoes (diced), along with chopped mushrooms and onions, and shredded carrots. All nicely hidden by some wonderful marinara sauce!

Whatever your child’s favorite, from grilled cheese to peanut butter and jelly, this should get your creative culinary and parenting skills brewing and your children eating healthier, more balanced meals. And it should make those dinner-time battles a thing of the past.
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but no one else in my family has food allergies except for me
i am allergic to eggs soy and nuts
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In wheat, barley, rye, and low level oats, there is a rubbery like protein called gluten. This substance is what helps the dough bind, which you would see with baked breads and other baked foods. Although these grains contain gluten, which can cause a gluten allergy in sensitive people, they also contain a number of other proteins that can also cause allergy symptoms.

The four primary proteins found in wheat, rye, and barley includes albumin, globulin, gliadin, and glutenin, better known as gluten. While the symptoms and severity of the symptoms of gluten allergy vary from one person to another, generally a person would experience hives, swelling, abdominal cramps, nausea and vomiting, or asthma. If the person is highly sensitive to gluten allergy, the symptoms could be life-threatening.

The good news about gluten allergy is that if the person has a reaction after eating wheat or wheat product, making an early diagnosis is easy. The challenge is that so many of the foods we eat are made with wheat, making it difficult to tell where the real problem lies. Most often, a trained doctor or allergist would conduct a skin ***** test or take blood to confirm that gluten allergy is the problem.

If the reaction to gluten is severe, the solution might be to eliminate wheat and wheat by-products from the diet. However, if the gluten allergy is minor, then reducing the amount of wheat consumed and/or allergy medication or shots might do the trick. If the person with gluten allergy is a young child, chances are he or she will outgrow the allergy.

Gluten Intolerance, also known as Coeliac Disease, is a hereditary disorder that affects the immune system. In this case, when gluten is consumed, the mucosa, which is the lining of the small intestine, is damaged. When this happens, important vitamins and nutrients are not absorbed properly. When a person has this type of gluten allergy, the symptoms would be different in children than they would be in adults.

For children, the gluten allergy would be seen as abdominal distension, impaired growth, abnormal stools, irritability, poor muscle tone, malabsorption, poor appetite, and wasting of muscle. If an adult has this type of gluten allergy, then diarrhea, significant weight loss, abdominal cramping and bloating, constipation, and offensive stools are common.

In both cases of gluten allergy, a doctor would need to perform blood tests to make a confirmed diagnosis. Once done, the only treatment is to have gluten completely eliminated from the diet. Because of this, it is essential that nutrient and vitamin deficiencies be addressed with things such as niacin, iron, thiamin, riboflavin, chromium, magnesium, selenium, folacin, molybdenum, and phosphorus. With proper care and diet, a person with gluten allergy can enjoy a hearty choice of foods without the irritating symptoms.
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What can cause the floor of the mouth to raise up, almost like swell…if there is no allergic reaction connected to it?
Thanks!
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Personal Story…

I was a first time mother. With labor a few weeks early, my baby girl was a bit small but healthy. It was only when she turned one years old, that we noticed something was wrong. The red cheeks, dark bags under the eyes, dry skin and cranky child, she just looked sick.

I am not sure how we thought of going to an allergist. Neither my husband nor I have much allergic histories. My husband did have some asthma as a child, but he outgrew it a while ago. I had a sister who was mildly allergic to eggs for a few years of her childhood… that was all. Could my daughter be allergic?

We were shocked but relieved to find the answer. After her first skin test done, she showed positive to eggs, milk, oats and beef. No wonder, she drank 6 bottles of milk a day! We took these results at face value (only later finding out that these tests are not always 100%) and began to learn to read labels and watch what she ate. She did improve, her face and eyes looked healthier…but her skin, it was dry, itchy and red. We discovered she had eczema. Was it a result of what she ate? Or was it a separate condition? The next two years we spent going from pediatric dermatologists, to top pediatric allergists. We did allergy blood work tests followed by skin tests. Results showed positive to tens of foods, including eggs, milk, fish, chicken, potato, banana, sesame, soy, and legumes; and now showed negative to beef and oats that were originally positive.

Just around my daughter’s one and a half year birthday, she became a big sister. This time I had experience. When my baby boy began scratching his face that looked red and itchy at four months old, we took him straight to the allergist. He showed positive to eggs milk and beef. Since I was only nursing him, he was getting these foods directly from me. I went on a strict diet and was off of these foods until he was one years old. He improved dramatically and became a different child. Only after he was one and a half, he began developing extreme eczema (just like his sister at that age). We did more food testing and sure enough, his list of allergies was almost as long as his sister’s (by now she outgrew some, such as potato and banana.)

For both of my children, the time from about 1 ½ to three years old was extremely difficult time for their eczema. I had to keep them in snap down long sleeve shirts and tights (yes my son, and yes, in the summer too!!) so that they wouldn’t scratch. They slept in sleepers that were pinned so that they wouldn’t open them. I tried not bathing too often (not to dry out their skin) and then tried new theory: long lukewarm baths few times a day. It was exhausting, draining, without much result. We kept a strict diet but it wasn’t until each of them turned about three, that their eczema became more under control. Sometimes they are still itchy, when they get sick, their eczema flares up. They still have food allergies, and we are very strict with them. But they are not as sensitive as they used to be. (My son would get red just from smelling fish.)

We learned to manage and created menus to cater to our children. Our children are growing up and becoming less sensitive and more mature about their allergies. It gets easier and more under control. With persistence and patience our children are happy, well adjusted and feel just like their peers.
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A carefully administered daily dose of peanuts has been so successful as a therapy for peanut allergies that a select group of children is now off treatment and eating peanuts daily, report doctors at Duke University Medical Center and Arkansas Children’s Hospital. “It appears these children have lost their allergies,” says Wesley Burks, MD, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at Duke. “This gives other parents and children hope that we’ll soon have a safe, effective treatment that will halt allergies to certain foods.” Long-term tolerance in children with peanut allergies was documented for the first time by the presence of key immunologic changes, according to researchers at Duke and Arkansas Children’s Hospital who presented their findings at the American Academy of Asthma and Immunology meeting in Washington, DC on March 15, 2009. Tests of several immunologic indicators suggest the body builds tolerance quickly. “At the start of the study, these participants couldn’t tolerate one-sixth of a peanut,” Burks said. “Six months into it, they were ingesting 13 to 15 peanuts before they had a reaction.” About four million Americans have food allergies, and allergies to tree nuts, such as peanuts, are the most common. Life-threatening reactions can occur from exposure to even a trace amount of peanuts, and nearly half of the 150 deaths attributed to food allergies each year are caused by peanut allergies. Duke and Arkansas Children’s Hospital began …
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