Every year 50,000 people go to a hospital ER with allergic reactions to food. Of those cases, 150 people die from their reaction to milk, eggs, soy, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, fish or shellfish.
“All other allergies have lots of treatments,” says Anne Munoz-Furlong, founder of the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network. “With food allergy, we have nothing: Avoid the food, take epinephrine (adrenaline shots to counteract anaphylaxis, a deadly reaction) and get to the hospital.”
You may feel scared, alone and uncertain when accidental exposure occurs, so you should map out how to get food allergy help before the situation ever arises.
Of course, many parents want their children to be cured of this awful ailment once and for all. Some parents enroll their children in clinical trials to get food allergy help. During these trials, the children will be given a small amount of allergen, either with a pinprick, orally or beneath their tongue, and their reaction is monitored and treated by the doctor, as necessary.
Every few weeks, the child will come back and take a slightly higher dose until the body develops a better tolerance to the protein. At first the experience can be stressful, both for parents and children, since so much energy and effort go into typically avoiding these situations. However, this technique has worked for some children with egg, peanut and milk allergies.
The most common food allergy help is simply avoiding the troublesome food itself. Some people find it easiest to just avoid eating peanuts or anything that might have come into contact with a peanut, rather than go through the trials and tribulations of long-term immunotherapy.
There are a number of great cookbooks full of food allergy recipes and the FDA requires food manufacturers to put warning labels on just about all foods now. Over-the-counter antihistamines can relieve hives, sneezing, runny noses and gastrointestinal symptoms.
Bronchodilators can relieve the symptoms of asthma or difficulty breathing. While these methods cannot prevent the allergic reaction, they can relieve the symptoms afterwards.
To read more Knowing Where To Find Food Allergy Help
