Food Allergies Archives • Page 4 of 4 • D-Mom Blog

November 20, 2012 by Leighann

{Allergies} Not So Sweet Almond Oil

I had no intentions of writing another allergy post this week, but as I was looking around online for allergen information I came across something that stunned me.

Cetaphil has sweet almond oil as an ingredient.

Cetaphil

Here’s the thing: We’ve been slathering Q with Cetaphil for years to help with eczema. I’ve wondered if her eczema was contact dermatitis or an allergy to something. Turns out I’ve been trying to treat a possible allergy with something that could very well be causing her symptoms! (Or at least making them worse.)

Anyway, the allergist is curious to see if her eczema clears up when we go off of milk. Maybe just going off the Cetaphil will help.

On the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network website (FAAN), I downloaded “How To Read Labels” so that we can all be on the same page when it comes to sneaky milk and tree nuts who wish to find their way into our daughter’s system.

{Allergies} Milk, It Doesn’t Do A Body Good

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We visited the allergist for a six-week follow up after the grueling skin test that left us in shock. We learned that Q is allergic to every single grass, weed, tree, plus dust and mold, a couple of animals, and every tree nut. Gah!

They don’t routinely test for foods during the first round of tests, but I had them check for tree nuts (but not peanuts, which are technically a legume, not a nut) and milk.

We’ve phased out all the foods in our home that definitely contain tree nuts and we’re working on getting rid of those that may contain tree nuts or are processed in a facility with tree nuts.

I really wondered if we needed to eliminate these products that may or may not have possibly been contaminated. When I asked the allergist said yes. She said that a study was conducted on products that do not have peanuts but are made in facilities or on equipment which might handle peanuts and 25% had at least trace amounts of peanuts. She said that although these tests weren’t conducted for tree nuts, the same probably holds true. And if Q was only allergic to one type of tree nut, the list of products to avoid might be shorter. But given that she’s allergic to ALL of the tree nuts, well, best to avoid ALL possible sources of them.

Ugh!

Like the muffin mix I buy. Or the small Hershey’s chocolate bars (but not all sizes). Or granola bars.

Looks like I need to start making more of these from scratch. What a pain in the arse.

At our initial visit we decided to get rid of the tree nuts and start a couple of meds as our first step. Well, we’re ready for the next step: eliminating milk.

The reality is that even though she tested positive for milk, doesn’t mean she can’t tolerate it.

So after talking with the allergist today, we’ve decided that we are going to try to see if milk affects her. We’re going to eliminate ALL milk form her diet for two weeks. If at the end of the two weeks we see no difference, she can have it again. If we do see a difference, we can start adding back in milk products one by one to see if she can tolerate any of them.

It’s kind of a lousy time of year to do it. But is there ever a good time?

The doctor suggested starting the day after Thanksgiving instead of immediately.

For two weeks I’ll have to read every single label, probably make a lot of home-cooked food (or packaged food with nutrition labels), and send her lunch in every single day.

I hope there aren’t a lot of birthdays and parties at school in those two weeks. (Note to self: try to find a yummy milk-free treat that I can stock at school as an alternative).

And forget the Advent calendar chocolates! (Which, by the way, I purchased without reading the label and wouldn’t you know they are made in a facility with stupid tree nuts!)

But I’m going to be Q’s partner in this. I’m going to eliminate milk right alongside her. I don’t drink milk (my eyes would swell if I downed a glass), but I do have cheese and butter and milk that’s an ingredient in recipes. I wonder if I will see a difference in myself.

Bring on the Tofutti Cuties!

Tofutti Cuties

{Allergies} Halloween Haul

We had our first Halloween with type 1 diabetes and a tree nut allergy.

We actually hooked up with the cousins and opted to come back to our house and hang out after an hour instead of taking more time going door-to-door. That being said, we still had a pretty good haul.

I have to say that because this is our fifth Halloween with diabetes, I wasn’t too worried about figuring out the carb counts of the candies. But since it’s our first with a known nut allergy, that’s where my focus was.

Candy With Tree Nuts

I casually began dividing up the candy into three piles:

I’m pretty sure it’s safe
I have no idea
Probably not safe

My “pretty sure it’s safe” pile included all the candy that had labels that listed allergens, but did not list tree nuts as one of them. Some did say they might contain peanuts, but since she’s been eating peanut butter all this time without symptoms and she wasn’t tested for peanuts we aren’t avoiding them.

My “probably not safe” pile included all the candy that said either “may contain tree nuts” or said that it is processed in a facility with or made on share equipment with tree nuts. I was quite surprised to see that Hershey’s chocolate bars may contain almonds. We have these when we make s’mores camping. Turns out that depending on the size of the Hershey bar, it may or may not be made alongside almonds.

The reality is that though these may contain trace amounts of tree nuts, they also may not. But I’m playing it “better safe than sorry.”

As for the “I have no idea” pile, which was the largest, I’ll look up the more desirable candies at some point and take the rest into work.

{Allergies} Everything Under the Sun…or on a Tree!

Last week I told you that I took Q in for allergy testing. Since it was our first visit I wasn’t sure what they would actually test for. They started with the normal allergens: trees, weeds, grasses, animals, dust, mold, etc. Foods were not on the list.

That poor thing reacted to every single tree, weed, and grass, plus dust, mold, cats, and guinea pigs. Surprisingly she did not react to dog, which she was excited about because I’ve always used it as an excuse not to get one. And I also thought she’d be allergic to horses because she came back from a trail ride this summer covered in hives. We were on vacation and we had to go to a pharmacy for benedryl and itch cream. The doctor said maybe it was mold or something in the woods that triggered the hives, not the horse.

I told the allergist that I have had a true milk allergy since childhood and I would like to go ahead and test for that. I also recounted Q’s walnut story.

A few years ago I was baking and one of the ingredients was walnuts. Q grabbed a handful of walnuts to snack on. She started complaining that her throat hurt. I noticed that she had red blotches around her mouth and on her cheeks.

I didn’t really think much of it because Q has had nuts before…and since. But she says over and over that she’s allergic to walnuts. Now mind you she eats Banana Nut Crunch (walnuts) and Blueberry Morning (almonds) for breakfast as least once a week. She also has several PB&J sandwiches every week. In my mind there was no way that she was allergic to nuts.

But she is. She reacted to every single tree nut they tested her for.

Hearing the news of her newly diagnosed tree nut allergy, Q began to cry. “I can’t eat my favorite cereal. Call daddy and tell him to throw it away before I get home.”

I have to say that the level of education you get with a diabetes diagnosis far outweighs that you get with a potentially life-threatening tree nut allergy. I was handed a stack of papers, told all of the prescriptions that would be called in, and the nurse showed us how to use an epi pen. And we were basically sent on our way.

What?!

I felt a little ill prepared leaving the office. It’s serious enough to have an epi pen, yet I wasn’t really talked through any of the logistics of being a tree nut free family.

Obviously I can read up. I’m the type of person who does her own research. But still. Two weeks later and I’m not sure if I have really grasped it.

Maybe I am under reacting. Maybe having a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes first prepared me to handle other diagnoses. Maybe I am completely delusional.

I would bet that if the nut allergy was the only (or first) health issue that my child had I would be freaking out.

I chatted with a parent at play practice whose child has both peanut and tree nut allergies. She said if I needed info or support she could be there for me. She said that not everyone is going to be supportive and it’s going to be too much of a bother for them to read labels, etc. I wasn’t in any way trying to discount her feelings or her child’s allergies, but I told her that compared to Q’s diabetes diagnosis, this didn’t seem as big a deal to me.

Like I said, maybe I’m delusional. I just know that I’m being cool and calm about it. At least for now.

More of this story to come!

Carbs in Medicine

Some time after diagnosis I realized that there may be carbs in OTC and prescription medicines when my daughter was on an antibiotic that came in a huge bottle. I asked the pharmacist if they knew the carb count and of course the bottle didn’t have any information.

I wonder why medicines aren’t required to have nutritional information like food items do. It would really be helpful.

The pharmacist told me that if there is a pill or tablet option, it will likely have less sugar than when in liquid form. For instance the children’s chewable Tylenol would have less than the liquid suspension formula.

I began reading labels and I’ve noticed that some children’s medications are made with artificial sweeteners, some with sucrose (sugar). There is also a big difference between chewable vitamins and the gummy ones, which of course are the ones that Q always wants and I never buy.

We’ve had an issue with our daughter going really high at bedtime every time she goes to her grandparent’s house to spend the night. They have a dog and cat so I try to remember to give Q some allergy medicine before she goes.

I have asked the CDE several times why she thinks Q is going high. Since my mom knows how to count carbs and give insulin (she babysat Q during the day until she went to school) that is not the issue. The CDE said that the adrenaline of being excited might cause high BG’s and also an allergic reaction could cause them. So I thought the preemptive allergy medicine would help.

The last time she spent the night, I was settling down to enjoy a diabetes-free night when of course my mom called. Q was in the 300’s at bedtime after being in range at dinner. I forgot to pack the ketone meter so I had to run it over. Ugh!

I realized that the ingredient in the generic Claritin was sucrose. SUGAR. How much? Who knows. But it sure couldn’t have helped that she got a big spoonful of it.

I purchased the generic for Zyrtec in tablet form and we are giving that a try.

Now I have to wonder if occasional strange high lunchtime BG’s at school weren’t the result of the allergy medicine. Though I have no way of putting two and two together because it’s not like I wrote in our log book that Q had allergy medicine on a particular day. (But I will try to remember to note it in the future.)

Have you noticed high blood sugars if your child is around a pet?
What about after taking a particular medication?