Good News In Treating A Child Food Allergy
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a child food allergy is more common than they had thought. In fact, in kids under 18, 12% tested positive for a milk allergy, 9% for a peanut allergy, 7% for an egg allergy and 5% for a shrimp allergy. Of course, these numbers may admittedly be over-inflated because their 2005-2006 sampling only showed that the kids tested positive for the presence of immunoglobulin E antibodies, which doesn’t necessarily mean they will have allergies. Additionally, these numbers also include those with digestive disorders (which is different than the immune system response of an allergy). Experts suspect that one-tenth of the children who test positive for the IgE antibodies will have a reaction.
It was once presumed that the only way to treat a child food allergy was to avoid any contact with that food for the remainder of one’s life. For people who test positive for allergies to milk, dairy, chicken, pork, oats, barley, rice, wheat, eggs and beans, this prognosis can seem like a death sentence. But a fresh approach is being implemented in several allergy clinics throughout America. A number of people respond to a food challenge, which gradually raises the patient’s intake of the allergen until tolerance is reached.
The only way to truly tell if a child food allergy is present is to give the child the suspected food and wait for a reaction. Naturally, many parents are hesitant to have their child ingest what could be a fatal dose of food that results in anaphylactic shock. Sometimes doctors will recommend a skin prick test or giving the child a very, very small dose of the suspected allergen in a clinical setting. For instance, a child with a suspected allergy to peanuts may be asked to try one-tenth of the amount of peanut protein found in the average nut. Gradually, that amount can be increased to see where the tolerance threshold lies. Some kids will continue having allergies for the rest of their lives, while others may simply overcome their hypersensitivity.
The most important aspect of diagnosing a child food allergy is to look into the child’s dietary history. “What was eaten? What sort of reaction did he have?” the doctor will ask. After that, the doctor may advise a blood test or a skin-prick test for additional confirmation. “When you come to me and say, ‘My kid ate a peanut butter sandwich and within 15 minutes, his lips turned blue, he got hives and threw up,’ that’s enough to tell me the child has a peanut allergy,” says Dr. Hugh Sampson of Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “The more typical history is that they were eating a meal and he had this horrible reaction and they think it’s peanuts. It’s essential to do a blood or skin test to make sure.”
Robert Wood, the director of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at John Hopkins, believes that blood tests for kids with food allergies are being possibly overused and definitely misinterpreted. “A lot of these kids truly have food allergies, just not to all the foods that they are being told they have allergies to,” he explains. It’s easy to dismiss allergies on foods kids have been eating for years.
If kids with food allergies is an issue that concerns you, visit our site on Food Allergies in Children for the facts you need.
