<p><a href=“http://christakis.med.harvard.edu/pdfs/BMJ_081213_Nuts.pdf[/url]”>http://christakis.med.harvard.edu/pdfs/BMJ_081213_Nuts.pdf</a></p>
<p>My son goes to a CTY camp - when they go off campus to the little convenience store, nobody is allowed to purchase or eat any chocolate because it might be cross contaminated. That is not in response to any specific allergic person - that is just their policy. Of course, nobody checks the labels on any other food purchased.</p>
<p>NorthEastMom, my son goes to that CTY site, too, and the kids he was with definitely checked labels, as did the RAs with them.</p>
<p>The events described in that article are unfortunate and definitely overreactions, BUT it frustrates me when people go so far as to say the idea of peanut allergies themselves is a big hoax and parents make it up for attention. Maybe a few do, but the threat of a severe allergic reaction is VERY real for some children. I ended up in the hospital my freshman year of college due to a peanut reaction… I could have died if there wasn’t a hospital around. Your throat closes and that’s that. You can only be so careful but these overreactions do spawn from true occurrences.</p>
<p>Allergies are real but the perception of them is altered by the fear and over-reaction. My wife teaches school and 1-3 parents per year will insist a child has food allergies and then it turns out the child has never been tested. The answer to that is the school shouldn’t be jumping through hurdles until and unless the child is actually tested, not that allergies should be ignored. The other issue, mentioned here as well, is that kids are not stupid and even the stupid ones don’t eat what they know not to eat. There are issues with unknown foods but even then the best police is the kid him or herself because it’s the child who actually puts food in his or her mouth.</p>
<p>I was skeptical about nut allergies until my nephew had one and we waited for two days to see if he would live or not. Absolutely horrific.</p>
<p>His doctors have advised that his brothers follow the nut free restrictions as well. They’ve never been tested. We’re not willing to take the chance and, yes, we do expect the groups they are in to take precautions.</p>
<p>Lastly, it does require stupidity for a child to eat something with nuts in it. They are children. Yes, they are the best police for themselves but it’s not unreasonable to ask adults to help. </p>
<p>I’m so tired of hearing about how hysterical our family is about this and how much other children suffer because they can’t eat peanuts around him.</p>
<p>Please, explain to me how all of this is an over-reaction or how our fears are unfounded after not knowing if he was going to live or die. I’m all ears.</p>
<p>I have a child with peanut and treenut allergies. Yes, some of the things mentioned in this article seem to go too far, but when you have a child who reacts if he even touches peanut butter, it can be very scary. We have always bent over backward to make sure that his allergy did not inconvenience others. Still…one year in his class there was a parent who insisted on bringing in “special treats” every so often and they were always something he couldn’t have (she was spoken to, but didn’t stop). There was the big school party where the decorated cake was from a bakery that uses peanuts and nuts, so I made a batch of “safe” cupcakes for S and any other allergic children. The cupcakes were clearly labled as for children with allergies, but people ignored the sign and took them anyway. I managed to grab the last 2 for S and a peanut allergic classmate. I ran the class parties every year so that we didn’t have to bother anyone about what they brought. Most people were nice, but not all by any means. </p>
<p>If you think it is inconvenient to accommodate someone else’s child who has peanut (or other food) allergies, you should consider what it is like when you have a child who lives with this 24/7. Oh, and S was also allergic to wheat, milk and eggs (which he later outgrew) which he could not eat for 3 years.</p>
<p>We do have a peanut/treenut allergy child in our extended family, so I am aware of many of the issues. In our situation, the child even reacts to sunflower, coconuts and sesame seeds. </p>
<p>But the inconsistency of the situation is frustrating - I have worked at a summer camp where children were sent with epi-pens - without ever being tested. As I said, at CTY, my child could not have chocolate - but could have other things. As for the CTY RAs (who are great !) I am not sure that a young RA could really read the labels correctly vis a vis a tree nut allergy, given that my family stills finds it confusing, after many years of practice. I find it hard to believe that a family with a child with a life-threatening allergy would rely on a questionably trained young adult stranger to handle that responsibility. </p>
<p>I do recognize food allergies, and I realize they are devastating - but it is confusing, especially when many people with food sensitivies confuse those with allergies. (As in a lactose intolerant person saying they’re allergic to milk)</p>
<p>Was the pun intentional?</p>
<p>Never mind, I see that was the name of the article. It must have been.</p>
<p>The food allergy tests are often INACCURATE and can cause severe, life-threatening reactions in the allergic. Expecting people who have discovered food allergies to undergo testing is stupid.</p>
<p>“We’re not willing to take the chance and, yes, we do expect the groups they are in to take precautions.”
I’m afraid you are assuming too much!
My nephew was given a cookie by a classmate from a home ec class who swore “no nuts” - let’s just say I 'm glad he keeps his Epipen with him.<br>
On the other hand, I’m a school nurse and am aware of certain over-reactions. Individual plans for each child is the safest way to go. (IE, keep cupcakes - made nut-free at home - frozen in nurse’s freezer for consumption by your allergic child when parties roll around.)</p>
<p>My D2 is very similar to Fallgirl’s child. She used to be allergic to not only peanut but also eggs, milk (whey and casein), berries and cherries. Her childhood was a minefield for us. She had to have the MMR in three doses under two days of benadryl ( since it is made with eggs). We had many unintentional brushes with tragedy. When we went to baseball games with her she had to wear jeans (in 94 degree heat of Florida) so that she didn’t get hives up and down her thighs from the seats (peanut dust). We always carried her out of the stadium (up until 12 years old) because she would get the shells on her shoes and then start reacting when we got to the car. </p>
<p>I was not a fanatic about her allergy. I kept peanut butter in the house for her siblings with very specific rules (never use the knife in any other jar and only plastic knives into the peanut butter and everyone washes hands and faces afterwards…) . Once, when she was a toddler, I was putting the peanut butter back into the refridg. and she starting to climb into the fridge. I gently grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the refrigerator. She developed a huge raised hive, in the shape of my hand, around her tiny arm for many hours later. Another benadryl night.
In school, she had to bring a towel to sit on in the cafeteria and I always put 3 paper towels in her lunch box which she used for a placemat.
She outgrew all her other food allergies at puberty but not the nuts.
She still has a peanut titer of 1:6000. She carries benadryl and an epipen in her purse at all times.
Peanut allergies are very real and very scary.</p>
<p>I do what I can to abide by food rules for kids whether they are for allergies or other personal reasons, particularly when the kids are young, but always when the issue is announced to everyone. It is not such a big deal to me to do this. My kids can eat their peanutbutter or other such foods at home, unlike those kids with the allergies.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is unreasonable for everyone follow these food restrictions when there are kids who have them. However, it is still a very heavy responsibility the parents and kids have even when the school and other parents are 100% on board with cooperating. Mistakes are made. People forget. It is a very tough go for those who have to deal with these allergies as they can never assume since their lives can depend on the accuracy of sniffing out those allergens.</p>
<p>Upon reading this article to my mom, her immediate response was “I don’t think they’ve looked at the other repercussions of nut allergies.” After a moment of my quizzical silence, she finished, “It inspires nut cases.” And after a few more seconds, “…and nutjobs.”</p>
<p>That being said, while I don’t underestimate the serious nature of many nut allergies, and that they can be lethal, I think some of the stories in this article assuredly represent gross overreactions. Reasonable accomodations are one thing. Obsessive decontamination is another thing entirely, and is only increasing the prevalence and severity of such allergies.</p>
<p>There is a child in our family who has a peanut allergy. She once broke out in hives all over her body, starting on the neck, because a child who had been eating peanut butter for lunch touched her on the neck.</p>
<p>Yet one constantly sees clueless people yapping about how those whose children have severe allergies should “train” their children, and that will just solve the problem. As if they don’t!</p>
<p>I think we’re coming up with genetically engineered peanuts that will remove the allergenic proteins. Most peanuts generally come with one allergen or another – and people allergic to peanuts usually are only allergic to one strain. </p>
<p>Peanuts used to caused my mouth to break out in hives, but only cause mild tingling sensations now. I still have never truly tasted the taste of peanuts though – I only eat them in trace amounts or if I do swallow a whole peanut, it always tastes unpleasant. The thing is sometimes I can eat peanut butter and not get a reaction – probably because the peanuts in that variant of peanut butter didn’t happen to contain the protein I was allergic to.</p>
<p>O.K. I confess to being one of the moms that finds it a bit of a hassle when my kid ends up in a nut-free class–though I would never dream of complaining or disregarding it. It’s literally just one more thing for me to remember to accomodate and I’m always worried I’ll slip and forget. I started thinking about it–putting myself in the other parent’s shoes–and one thing I realized is that it must be beyond terrifying to send those kids to school every day–which brings me to my question:</p>
<p>How do you do it? How do you send your kid to school every day and trust that all these random parents are comprehending the seriousness of that half page note in their kid’s back pack about being a nut-free classroom? I don’t think I could trust so many people to be responsible and respectful of something that could dramatically impact my child. I see how careless some of these parents are with their own kids and I just can’t imagine that they’re taking the extra step and reading the granola bar package. I know you probably want your kids to have as normal a life as possible, but I think I’d be petrified every single day. I mean, the girl that shows up in flip-flops when there’s snow on the ground–is her mom paying attention to the food restrictions? She’s not even paying attention to her own kid!</p>
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<p>Be careful. That’s how my allergies started - all they would do was cause my mouth/lips to tingle and swell a little. But allergies can get worse over time. After I developed asthma, about a year later I had a reaction to peanuts that was so severe I could have died if I didn’t get to the hospital in time. Don’t risk it, honestly…</p>
<p>I have kids with sensitivities but not allergies.
( to wheat/corn/soy not nuts- my younger daughter had been off wheat for the school year- and we noticed good improvement but when she went off to camp, I allowed her to have it- if she wanted- but then she couldn’t go back on the diet- it is pretty hard to eliminate wheat in this culture)</p>
<p>However I do know a boy who has severe allergies and his mom is super vigilant ( his dad and sister have to stay at a hotel and have peanut butter feasts occasionally)
Despite this- he was staying at a resident camp a few years ago- after his mother had drilled the staff on precautions and they were well aware of the danger.
Still he was handed a cookie with visible nuts by a counselor and was able to refuse it and to tell his sister who was also at the camp.
If he hadn’t seen that - what tragedies could have occured?</p>
<p>( by the way- since I have one child who went an entire year wearing a tank top- a fleece vest- the same shorts and tevas- despite a room full of clothes- I wouldn’t discount too much the mom whose kid wears flip flops) ;)</p>