Dairy Allergy Desensitization

A few weeks ago, my nine year old son was eating lunch at school when his little buddy dipped his carrot in ranch dressing and touched my son’s cheek with it.  My friend who works at the school saw my son scratching two red bumps on his face and she immediately guessed that somehow he came into contact with an allergen.  She sent him to the nurse who gave him some antihistamine which worked to calm the hives within a short time--but my son was shaken, upset and wanted to go home. 

While he has never had a reaction to merely touching dairy--he had now.  Rather than becoming less sensitive, it appears he may be becoming more sensitive.  Have our efforts of strict avoidance back-fired on us?  I don’t have the answers, but did some research on how we might approach desensitizing him. 

I found four main approaches:

1. New Drug ‘Omalizumab’:  “'This is the first study to use omalizumab in combination with oral desensitization,' said Umetsu, who is also the Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. 'Using omalizumab allowed us to escalate their milk intake very rapidly compared to other desensitization protocols, and still limit allergic reactions.'  After first pretreating the children with omalizumab, the investigators then introduced milk in ever-increasing amounts over the next seven to 10 weeks, a relatively rapid desensitization period.”  http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2011/march/milk.html
2. Baked Milk:  "Dr. Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn , 'Our unpublished data (in older kids, median age about 4 years; Caubet JC et al, manuscript under revision) suggested that casein-IgE <0.7 kUA/L is a very favorable prognostic factor for tolerance of baked milk with the vast majority of kids tolerating baked milk with such level.'"   http://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/challenge-to-baked-milk.aspx
3. Hospitalized with Antihistmine & Epinephrine:  "The treatment consists of progressive oral administrations of the allergen, starting with infinitesimal quantities and increasing the dose every two hours (5 to 3 doses daily). Antihistamine is given twice a day, and an iv catheter is maintained on the patient for the duration of the treatment, so that adrenaline can be administered without delay in case of an emergency. The treatment lasts about 10-12 days, and is later continued at home following a sequence determined by the hospital." http://www.allergyhope.com
4. Homeopath Desensitization: "The term homeopathy comes from the Greek words homeo, meaning similar, and pathos, meaning suffering or disease. Homeopathy seeks to stimulate the body's ability to heal itself by giving very small doses of highly diluted substances.  According to the 2007 National Health Interview Survey, which included a comprehensive survey of complementary and alternative medicine...('CAM') use[d] by Americans, an estimated 3.9 million U.S. adults and approximately 900,000 children used homeopathy in the previous year.  People use homeopathy for a range of health concerns, from wellness and prevention, to the treatment of diseases and conditions such as allergies, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, digestive disorders, ear infections, headaches, and skin rashes."  http://nccam.nih.gov/health/homeopathy/

Please share your experiences and thoughts on these treatments.

Profiling & Food Allergies

As I drove home from my technical writing job today on the interstate going at around 60 to 65 mph there were a lot of cars in the two lanes that fanned out to three or four then back to two.  With both hands on the wheel, I listened to my favorite Mozart CD and drove.  I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw a woman behind me who was talking with a man who wore a dark business suit, white shirt and red tie.  She quickly turned to look at him and seemed very interested in carrying on the conversation making some small hand gestures as she spoke.  She made me a bit nervous. Minutes later, I saw two young men in a small, older car closing in quickly on me seemingly within feet from my rear bumper--much too close for my comfort.  In both cases, I put on my blinker and moved to the next lane to get away from what I perceived as dangerous drivers.  

As I continued to drive, it occurred to me that my driving attention includes a significant effort of watching the behavior of other drivers and mitigating my risks by trying to move away from drivers who I believe are dangerous.  I am indeed profiling!  By profiling drivers and intuitively rating them on a risk scale my decisions are impacted as are my route and speed.  For instance, the distracted chatting woman and the aggressive young man were both profiled quickly as high risk because if the unexpected were to happen, I felt they would not be well-prepared to respond in a safe way so I changed lanes, altered speeds and moved away.

As parents of children with food allergies, I have learned that various people can be profiled to a certain extent when it comes to supervising my children with respect to their dairy and egg allergies.  For instance, I’ve experienced an art teacher to said, “Oh I didn’t even think of that!” when I pointed out that she gave my then two-year-old egg-allergic-son an egg carton with which to create a craft.   I’ve also experienced another teacher who almost immediately “forgot” what foods my sons were allergic to right after our meeting discussing it for well over fifteen minutes.  Or there is the visitor who was just eating peanut butter candies in the car and has some smeared on their shirt.  These “non-registering” folks are profiled in my mind as “high risk” for food allergy supervision. 

Another high risk category are the people who act like parents of food allergic kids are a little crazy or at a minimum very over protective.  For instance, one Sunday I came out of church service to find the Sunday school teacher gave the entire class sorbet and ice creams covered in chocolate sauce and other candies.  Shocked, as I wasn’t advised there would be sundaes in Sunday school, I inquired about the ingredients and mentally checked my purse for the Epi-Pen.  The teacher's reaction was a bit condescending:  I felt the strong sense that I was somehow stepping out of line.  Even my mother advised me several years ago that my brother said if he watched the kids he wanted to try to give my sons some dairy!  So I find these consciously rebellious attitudes as high risk profile, but perhaps not quite as high risk as the first category of, “Geez, I forgot,” or “Geez, I didn’t even think of that.”  At least this second group is conscious.

On a positive note, there are wonderful low risk folks who are like angels.  Both of my sisters-in-law and mother understand and go to special trouble to make delicious meals that are dairy and egg-free.  I trust them, appreciate them and am grateful.  Further, our new church's Sunday school teacher carefully explained her own experience and daughter’s experience with food allergies all the while giving me assurances and food related activity schedules so as to settle my own stomach.

So just like we profile others when driving or doing various every day activities that involve assessing risk, we can and should profile people upon whom we rely to care for or supervise our food-allergic children. 

I recommend considering the kind of person--is the person absent minded? Self centered? Forgetful? Rebellious? Arrogant? Panicky?  If so, these are high risk personalities when it comes to food allergies.  Their behavioral reputation will likely carry over to their ability to care for food-allergic children and either cause a crises or be unlikely to handle a crises well. 

Look for people who show characteristics of being considerate, respectful and able to listen (and hear).  Consider how carefully one communicates details.  Do they have some experience with any serious health issue that might help them understand food allergies more?  I think these are lower risk personalities and probably more likely to be successfully trusted to care for your food allergic child in a responsible, sensitive and positive way--both to your child and to you.

Toxic Load Affects Allergies

Now that the new school year is well underway and the holidays are on the horizon, keeping our lives in balance is the challenge.  There are many things that our boys want to do and many things that my husband and I want them and us to do, but the challenge is finding the priorities and the balance.  When things get out of balance and we take on too much, the result is exhaustion, poor behavior, illness and toxic overload.

As any parent knows, balancing school, homework, baseball, piano, play dates and free time can be difficult when there are only twenty-four hours in a day.  Stretching the day-time activities into the night-time sleeping hours never works.  A short term gain in accomplishments leads to a long term loss in effectiveness. 

Food allergies are an immune system disorder.  I believe that when the immune system is stressed by exhaustion, emotional needs or illness the body then further succumbs to illness.  I’ve found the old wives tales of keeping healthy to be quite effective.  Specifically, “don’t get a chill,” “get plenty of sleep,” “eat right,” and “keeping a good attitude” can impact the body’s ability to handle the exposure to viruses the come through sneezes and coughing from schoolmates. 

Our older son puts a lot of pressure on himself to help others and be a leader in school.  But he pays the price in exhaustion after school.  As we were waiting at the bus stop last week, he told me how tired he was, how his legs and back ached.  His little chin trembled a bit as he told me and he looked a bit pale.  My heart ached as I wondered what to do.  Is he getting sick?  Should I keep him home today?  I’d have to call work and not go in as well.  Was there a compromise?  That’s the constant struggle I feel when trying to do the right thing for my children.  We decided he would go to school, but I picked him up a little early so he could avoid the bus ride home and spend an extra hour on the sofa eating and relaxing.  I think it helped--he was tired at the end of the day, but felt better the next day. 

I find that the medical studies and often many physicians dispute these sort of esoteric factors that a mother (or father) might take into consideration when deciding how to best take care of her child.  I often see or hear, “There is no medical basis,” or “There is no proof,” with the undertone of “you are being silly, woman,” but I believe and see evidence of these intangible factors as being significant.  A person’s child body isn’t a composite of parts, but a whole.  Understanding that one thing impacts another that impacts yet another is important when it comes to health. 

That’s where the toxic load evolves:  The more “toxins” we put upon our bodies or our children’s bodies, the harder the immune system must work to overcome them.  This “stress” can negatively impact the body’s ability to handle allergic reactions as well.  It can reportedly make the reactions up to two hundred percent worse at times of high stress according to some studies. 

So I believe that striving to keep our lives in balance is of utmost importance for health at many different levels--emotional and physical as it pertains to illness and allergies, both of which rely on a strong immune system that itself can reach a more healthy level of balance by not overreacting to allergens and by being strong enough to fight off the true enemies in the world of viruses and unhealthy bacteria.  Finding balance in a nebulous world of issues and outcomes is a true challenge for parents. 

Getting a Second Opinion

Getting a second opinion from medical professionals can benefit all sorts of medical conditions--not just allergies.  Will it cost a little more money?  Maybe a few extra co-pays, but in the long run, I think it is better.

For instance, my sons now have three kinds of doctors:  A regular, allopathic pediatrician, a pediatric allergist and a naturopathic physician. 

1. The allopathic pediatrician tends to give vaccinations, run annual weight and measurement checks and prescribe medications such as antibiotics and other strong, immediate-response medicines.  
2. The pediatric allergist will run allergy skin prick tests, blood tests when necessary and challenge tests when both of the former are negative.  The allergist is also focused what medications might help avoid seasonal allergies from growing into illness and what medications are need for severe allergic reactions such as an Epi-Pen.
3. The naturopathic physician is a fully licensed doctor with as many years of schooling as a regular doctor.  But the focus here is on the person’s health as a whole and to identify what might be missing from a person’s body that is causing illness or other problems.  Then the solution is giving or supplementing the missing thing to allow the person to heal their own body, perhaps more slowly but also more solidly.

Does it sound complicated?  Sometimes it is.  Often the doctors have different opinions about how to handle our sons’ illnesses which can be confusing and frustrating.  Other times, I appreciate the two-against-one sort of outcome because it helps me to see the situation more clearly by separating out the different doctors' methodologies and focus. 

Here’s an example:  Last spring seasonal pollen was very high.  My son was wheezing.  I took him to the naturopath and then the allopathic doctor in the same day.  The naturopath gave him some supplements to help his breathing and suggested the situation warranted a breathing treatment inhalant.  Because he isn’t licensed to prescribe that kind of medication he wanted me to see the allopathic physician.  Once I was at the next office, the allopathic physician thought my son needed not only the breathing treatment inhalant, but also steroids and antibiotics.  Later, at home when I called and advised the naturopath physician of this solution, he disagreed, but left it to my discretion. I gave my son the inhalant for one week and the steroids because it seemed like he needed them to get over this wheezing problem.  But I didn’t give him the antibiotics because he didn’t have a fever so I thought he didn’t have a sinus infection.  It turned out that he was fine without the antibiotics.

Here’s where the second and third opinion helped:  The allopathic (regular pediatric) physician said there was nothing wrong with steroids for a few days.  But there was an impact that has lasted for over four months.  My son developed a rash from the steroids that we gave him for just a few days.  Beating down the rash with months of probiotics wasn’t working.  It was not until I bought several over the counter creams, washes and powders to kill off the candida fungus did the rash start to subside.  I also wonder what other negative impacts occurred that are invisible to me. 

While the naturopath said the steroids caused the rash problem by empowering bad bacteria and fungus in my son's system, I also heard the pediatrician say they wouldn’t cause any problems if only taken for a few days and he didn't think the rash was due to the steroids (even though it appeared right after taking them).  But then the scales tipped for me when the pediatric allergist said that we should avoid oral steroids.  A preventative seasonal allergy medication is worth taking to avoid the onset of wheezing and thus the need for steroids.  I think the problem with steroids is that they do throw the body’s balance off which is not something a parent wants for a child who has food allergies since the delicate balance of intestinal health is probably the source of the problem in the first place. 

Sometimes I feel frustrated by one doctor or another.   But I also really like each of my sons’ doctors as people.  I do believe they all mean well and only want to do the best for my children.  So I will continue to obtain doctors' advice and opinions as each have different personalities, educations, philosophies about the right way to treat and heal. 

I think one of the most difficult parts of being a parent involves weighing the information and making an informed decision.  How could I be fully informed if I only had a single professional opinion?  Getting second and third opinions is a good thing.  Maybe it is more complex, but it is more complete. 

Keeping Calm About Food Allergies

Last weekend in an attempt to replace a broken screen door on the back of our home, I purchased one from a building supply store.  It was too short.  So in the late afternoon, I drove back to the store to return it.  It was hot─very hot.  It took about thirty minutes to get there.  The air conditioning in the car was broken.  It felt even hotter carrying the screen door back into the store.  I was hungry, tired, frustrated and disappointed─I actually felt sick to my stomach and a little light headed.  After trying to find another door that would fit, I gave up, in despair and felt depressed─surely an overreaction to a screen door problem, but that is how I felt that afternoon.

When I returned home, about one-and-a-half hours later, I found my younger son sitting on a little blue beach chair on the lawn next to the driveway.  He was happy to see me─grinning ear to ear and waving to me as I pulled in.  His feet were sort of wiggling back and forth on the green grass in a relaxed, silly way.  I thought to myself, “Wow, I can’t believe I just went through what seemed like hell and back, while my little son had a totally different experience for the past ninety minutes.”  I was indeed quite envious. 

When I got out of the car, I asked him if he had been here the whole time.  He replied, “Yes Mommy, I was waiting for you.  Do you want to play catch?”  I was further stunned that he had been so patient and was so happy despite the heat and the wait.  Although I had a headache by this point, I said okay, and we played a bit of catch in the backyard, until I realized I just couldn’t even catch the ball that day because I was so exhausted from the heat and my own experience of screen-door-frustration.

So you might ask, “What does this experience possibly have to do with food allergies?”  Well─it is a vivid reminder that to a large extent we can create our own experiences.  While we all must carry the burden of having to deal with food allergies, we can ask ourselves, “What is my attitude about food allergies in my life?”  Am I angry?  Tired of them?  Frustrated?  Mad?  Feel unfairly burdened?  Do I express my frustration at others who are eating peanut butter or dairy near my child?  Am I angry with the school?  Doctors?  Do I feel frustrated towards my own child because of allergies?  Do I get angry with relatives during social gatherings when their attitude is not as I’d like?  In other words, a parent may feel that the food allergies are unfair, so they may therefore carry around a certain amount of resentment and stress that negatively impacts their life, their child’s life and those with whom they come into contact.

Instead, consider my little son’s take on life:  Sitting on the beach chair on the terribly hot day, waiting for ninety minutes for my return─all with a very good attitude.  Can we parents find the pleasure in life with all of the good things that we have─despite the food allergies?  Perhaps a child has food allergies, but is that child is otherwise healthy, adorable, bright, fun, silly, loving and smart?  While social gatherings can be difficult, are there ways to create get-togethers that are more conducive to dealing with food allergies?   

How one feels about food allergies in a child, can be controlled to a large extent.  A parent can still be careful─but not stressed out about it.  Make the experience of childhood fun, despite the heat (so-to-speak).  You can’t change it anyway.  All you can do is make it better or worse─with your attitude and actions.  In fact, there are studies that show stress can actually make allergic reactions worse, up to 200% worse!  So try to remove stress from your allergy situation by working to change your attitude and feelings about them.  Accept them.  Deal with the allergies with care, but try to have fun while you kids are growing up.  Be like my little six-year-old son who sat waiting patiently and finding fun on the beach chair, doubtlessly getting up now and then to chase a butterfly or look at an ant, and smiling contentedly at me after waiting with anticipation of some more fun upon my return.