Anyone who has ever carried an Epipen knows that certain allergies aren't to be messed with. Even more so if the shot recipient was your own child. Scary enough to have anaphylaxis for yourself, but it's that much worse when your little one is being rushed to the ER.
I know a bit about food allergies. I'm allergic to pretty much everything I eat, at least a little. Corn, coffee, soy: on a 1-4 scale (4 being the worst reaction, which is my ragweed number), those foods rank about a 1.5, so it's good that I stay away from most processed foods.
If I really want some fun with food/body interactions, I'll down a handful of pistachios. I know! I love pistachios, too! One way to find out you're allergic to something? Snack bunches on it until you turn beet-red, swell, can't breathe, and start sweating. Whee!
But I'm an extreme case. (I'm pretty much an extreme case of everything!) Who's allergic to pistachios like that? And no other tree nut. *sigh.*
A new study says that many children with eczema and asthma may not have the assumed food allergies. A relatively small sampling had a pretty big outcome.
The National Jewish Health in Denver conducted "food challenge" tests on 125 kids previously diagnosed with food allergies. That is, doctors gave them the food they were supposedly allergic to. The result? Half of them could tolerate those foods.
Dr. David Fleischer was quoted by NPR with this zinger,
The only true test of whether you're allergic to a food is whether you can eat that food.
I know: Duh, right?! Actually, he was pointing out that the blood tests aren't always accurate. They only give you an idea of your sensitivities. Some patients can indeed handle those foods that they're supposedly so allergic to.
This falls on the heels of a New York Times report on two studies in which children with peanut allergies, the most severe allergies there are, learned to tolerate the legume in small doses.
In that case, children were dosed, under the care of a physician, with little bits per day. This was also a small study: 33 kiddos. By the end, only 4 had dropped out because they couldn't tolerate the food. Two and a half years later, 5 of the kids can have peanuts in their regular diets, and most of the rest are tolerating the therapy with no allergic reaction.
Granted, these aren't ginormous studies or anything. I suspect that messing with small samples of children made it easier to keep an eye out for that nasty ol' anaphylaxis.
But what do I know? I do know one thing: the treatment looks mighty familiar to the holistic allergy "meds" I have. As Jennifer at Eco Child's Play pointed out,
Homeopathic treatment involves giving extremely small doses of natural substances that mimic the symptoms of the same illness in healthy people when given in larger doses.
That is, dose up a bit on the specific grasses you're allergic to, and that could ease your overall seasonal effects. I do it in the Fall and Spring, and it actually helps. Not so much with pistachios. I once mistakenly ate a cookie that had a bit of the nut ground-up in it and had to combat the breathing issues with (gasp!) Benadryl. This is why you shouldn't steal cookies from the Pastry Department at work, no matter how delicious they look or how much the Chef loves you.
For both studies, researchers point out strongly (glasses at the end of noses and fingers wagging) that this is not a do-it-yourself therapy. Don't go ingesting every BIG food allergen you have. But check it out with your doc. Maybe she'll give you the okay for little trials.
Remember when? I wrote a blog a while back about egg allergies abating because of a daily cake intake for kids. No joke! Let Them Eat Cake and Candy.
Both the peanut study and the overall food allergy study were presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology conference in D.C.
Image: viZZZual.com on Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
|