Thursday, February 23, 2012

Expect the Unexpected

It is amazing how many foods have milk, eggs, peanuts or tree nuts in them. When we first found out about my son's allergy we thought it wouldn't be so hard. We thought we just couldn't feed him a bowl of cereal with milk in it and he couldn't have scrambled eggs in the morning. I then saw that most all baby food had something in them that he was allergic to. Finally, when he started to eat table foods we thought he would be able to eat so much more. But, then we realized that it was in almost everything; baked goods, canned goods, crackers, chips and even meats. The hardest part is going to someones house when they are making food. At that point it is pretty much completely out of your hands. At first people may not understand the severity or how many things have these allergens in them. You can go buy a bag of pretzels not realizing that it may contain nuts.

Another unexpected place you can find a food allergen is in vaccinations. Some vaccines are grown in eggs. That means that people that are allergic to eggs may have a reaction to these vaccines. My son was unable to get the MMR vaccine until recently when he got it under special conditions. For him to get the flu vaccine, they had to give him 6 different small shots over a couple of hours to avoid a reaction. The H1N1 shot was the worst for him.

Some lotions and soaps contain nuts to enhance the product. Play-doh has wheat in it, so those with a wheat allergy cannot touch play-doh.

There are many unexpected places that you can find food allergens. Caution is always best any time you are around someone with severe allergies.

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