Food Allergy Update: Almonds Are In

With a child allergic to dairy, egg, peanuts, tree nuts and shellfish, we've worried over the years about protein and calcium sources. It's tough to get those things while avoiding so much. Last week, my child tried a sliver of almond.

No reaction, even though a blood test showed an allergy to almond.

The next day, half an almond.

No reaction.

Fast forward a week and a bunch of almonds later. Either my child was never allergic to almonds, or the allergy was very recently outgrown. Whatever the case, I'm glad to be able to add this nutrient-packed food to his diet.

Sesame seed, almonds, baked milk (powdered) and baked egg all successful over the past few months.

On to cheese this week.

We're making progress. Very exciting, quite stressful.

Food Allergy Conference

FEAST (Food Allergy, Eczema, Asthma, Support Team) will hold their first food allergy conference on Saturday September 25, 2010 in Seattle Washington.



Linda Coss will  be giving the conference keynote address, “What You Need to Know about Food Allergy Management.” In this presentation she'll talk about some of the things that are in her “How To” book, such as recognizing and treating an allergic reaction, avoiding the dangers of cross-contamination, and more. In addition, she'll be discussing how parents can handle all of the day-to-day issues in such a way that their child grows up “well-adjusted” in spite of having potentially fatal food allergies.

Please spread the word about this conference. For more information, or to register, visit the conference website.

I received a related note directly from Linda:

As with all of my talks to the food allergy community, I will not be asking for a speaking fee for my participation in this conference. If you know of another volunteer-run food allergy support organization such as FEAST that needs a speaker for a conference, please let them know that I consider it an honor to be able to help other parents. All I ask is that the organization pay for my actual travel costs.

Reliable Tests for Food Allergy Diagnosis

Skin tests and blood tests are the standards for initial diagnosis of food allergy. Unfortunately, neither are very reliable. I don't know about you, but when the doctor calls and starts reading off blood test results to me, I hang up the phone feeling more confused than ever. If the "almond number" rose from 2 to 15 in the past year, is my child way more allergic to almonds now than last year? What does, "off the chart for dairy" mean?  I've never felt like these numbers give me helpful information.

While the "gold standard" for diagnosing food allergy is the food challenge, it is helpful to have accurate information going into the challenge.

Christopher Love, an MIT engineer, is on the trail of a more precise way to measure food allergies in a blood test. His new technology, recently reported in Lab on a Chip, can analyze individual immune cells. Instead of detecting antibodies, like the current blood test does, Love's system screens the patient’s immune cells for small proteins known as cytokines. Immune cells such as T cells produce cytokines when an allergic response is initiated, attracting other cells to join in the response. Those cells are then exposed to the potential allergen for a precise measurement.

Research continues and human trials are the next step, but I'm hopeful that Love's work will allow those of us who deal with food allergies the abilibty to make better ecisions based on helpful and accurate information.