Are You Overreacting To A Child Food Allergy?

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a child food allergy is more common than they had thought. In fact, in kids under 18, 12% tested positive for a milk allergy, 9% for a peanut allergy, 7% for an egg allergy and 5% for a shrimp allergy. Of course, these numbers may admittedly be over-inflated because their 2005-2006 sampling only showed that the kids tested positive for the presence of immunoglobulin E antibodies, which doesn’t necessarily mean they will have allergies. Additionally, these numbers also include those with digestive disorders (which is different than the immune system response of an allergy). Experts suspect that one-tenth of the children who test positive for the IgE antibodies will have a reaction.

What about food allergies in babies? When four week old Grayson Grebe got eczema on his cheeks, his mother began to worry. Two months later, he was diagnosed with every food allergy in the book, including wheat, dairy, egg, bean, oat, rice, barley, chicken, pork, corn and peanut. His mother stopped eating these foods, but her baby’s condition did not improve. By 10 months, the doctors had cut out fruits and vegetables and put Grayson on a special hypo-allergenic formula. His eczema was so severe he needed to wear special mittens, long-sleeved shirts and long pants to prevent him from scratching. Once treated at the National Jewish Health center that specializes in allergies and respiratory diseases, doctors gave Grayson food challenges — gradually exposing him to small doses of the foods he was supposedly allergic to. “We came home with 12 foods he could eat,” Amy Grebe recalls. “It’s made so much difference in our lives.”

Anaphylactic shock is one danger of this sort of child food allergy test. In rare cases, a child with a severe allergy may suffer low blood pressure, stop breathing, turn slightly blue, lose consciousness and suffer multiple organ failure. Even if a child has only suffered a mild reaction in the past, there is still a possibility the next reaction may be more severe. Unfortunately, there are no tests to determine whether a reaction to peanuts will be a mild tingle in the mouth, a moderate case of hives or anaphylactic shock. On the other hand, being in a clinical setting is much safer than discovering an allergy out in the real world, where medical equipment isn’t ready to administer treatment for food allergy emergencies.

Child food allergy tests have gotten some flack in the news recently. A study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (January, 2010) found that 66/79 children who tested positive for peanut IgE antibodies could eat peanuts safely. Similarly, doctors from National Jewish Health reported that half of the 125 patients given food challenges could tolerate the foods they’d been avoiding for years. Hopefully, there will be new blood tests in the future. Research companies like Phadia AB are looking at tests that can determine which precise molecule within a food will trigger the antibody reaction. For instance, in those patients with peanut allergies, only 3/14 molecules are associated with anaphylaxis.

Jeremy Larson is a foremost expert in acid reflux remedy field. His work has been extensively published in various online publications in this area. For more information on the treatment, visit RemedyForAcidReflux.com.