The Holiday Season-How I Survived

Hi everyone, and Happy Holidays! Another Christmas past, and a new year is practically upon us! I hope you all had an enjoyable, fun and safe holiday. A break from school and/or work to see family and friends is always a great way to spend our holiday, but it's important to always keep safety in mind, especially during this time of year. I'm not just talking about those traveling on the roads, or those adults that like to have a spirited drink or two on Christmas Eve, but those with food allergies as well! This post will tell you about my experiences I had this year during Christmastime and how I kept myself safe. Alright, let's get started!

This year was a beautiful Christmas for my family and me, and luckily, there were zilch trips to the emergency room. Hallelujah! The little things that I did, that my family did, and that my friends did were the reasons I was safe this year. I'm extremely grateful to have such an amazing, wonderful family that helped make this Christmas special. I'm also very grateful to have amazing, protective friends that look out for me at school when candy is exchanged at lunch, on the bus, and in between classes. Before I launch into the details of what they did to help me, I want to thank my family and all of my friends for helping me stay safe this holiday season. I couldn't have had the special Christmas I had without you, so thanks a bunch!

I first and foremost want you all to know that the holidays are never all about the food! Experiences aren't about the food, especially holiday experiences! I think the most important thing during the holidays is reaching out to those you love, not about eating. I always keep this in mind when Christmas rolls around, and you should too!

Every year, my mom, sister and I team up to help make Christmas cookies, Christmas Eve dinner, and Christmas dinner. I love to help in the kitchen, and I've become better at reading food labels and using substitutes for different foods because of all my work in the kitchen, although I think I still need to improve on not making a huge mess in the process of baking ;). Like all families, my family has Christmas cookie favorites, so we end up making a lot of the same cookies each year, but they're all old favorites, so I'm never regretful when I eat some :). The ones we made this year are chocolate crinkles, which are made using cocoa powder (dairy free) and soy margarine instead of butter; reindeer poop cookies (a peanut butter cookie with soy margarine)  that has chocolate chunks on top made by Enjoy Life (Enjoy life makes a variety of products for people with food allergies, all of which are free of the eight main allergens and more); raspberry lemon thumbprint cookies , made with soy margarine instead of butter, and spritz cookies, which just use soy milk instead of regular milk (I can't remember if the recipe called for butter, but if it did, then we used soy margarine like with all the other cookies). For Christmas dessert, we made apple and pumpkin pie using soy milk and soy margarine substitutions, and for Christmas Eve dessert, we made chocolate mousse, which would normally need real cream, but instead we used, believe it or not, avocado because avocado doesn't have a strong taste and it worked just as well as cream would have. (at least the mousse wasn't green!) We also used coconut milk instead of using regular milk.

My mom recently found a product called Coco-Whip, which is similar to regular whipped cream, only it's dairy free and has a slight taste of coconut! We used this product on Thanksgiving and we used it again when we ate pie on Christmas. My whole family loves this product, and we introduced it to my grandparents too, who declared it a very smart and delicious substitution.

For the actual dinners, we had lasagna on Christmas Eve and the classic ham dinner on Christmas. I won't go into the details of Christmas dinner, as there was a lot to it, but I will briefly talk about Christmas Eve. As I said before, we had a delicious lasagna dinner on Christmas Eve, along with garlic bread and a salad. To make sure there weren't any risks, my mom and I made my own personal little pan of lasagna before my mom and my sister made the regular lasagnas. To make my lasagna free of regular cheese, we used dairy free shredded cheese (can't remember the brand name), dairy free ricotta by Tofutti, and dairy free Parmesan cheese by Go Veggie! These can all found in your local grocery store. When my mom shopped for the supplies for my lasagna, she was also careful to get a safe sauce. Some sauces contain traces of milk or cheese, so just be sure to read the ingredient labels. One last thing we did to make sure I stayed safe was that when my mom and dad served us, there was a cheese free knife and spatula for my lasagna and a cheesy knife and spatula for the other lasagnas so there wasn't any cross contamination.

Thank you for reading My Food Allergy Life. I hope you all had a very merry Christmas, and I wish you all a fun and safe new year! Talk to you in 2016! 

How to Read a Label (Part 1)

Hello everyone! Today's post is going to be all about labels. Labels, labels, and more labels. Reading the ingredients on a product to check if your allergens are in it can sometimes be tricky or stressful, especially if there are a lot of ingredients in a certain product or if the product (this happens a lot in different lotions, body washes, shampoos and conditioners, makeup...) has a lot of hard to pronounce chemicals or uncommon ingredients in it. A lot of times I've spent two or three minutes on reading a product's label. Today I'm going to share a few tips and tricks that either my mom or dad taught me about or that I learned myself through experience. Because I have a lot to say about this topic, I've split this "post" into to parts. I'll be posting the second part soon, but for now, let's get started!

I know that some people don't have very severe allergies, so they don't read the labels on body products like makeup, washes, masks (as in face cream masks) and creams, but did you know that main allergens can be found in these products? For example, take a look at the label from a bottle of face wash:

From "The Whole Philosophy"

There are a lot of crazy confusing chemicals in this face wash, but the first ingredient in the second line is "lactic acid", which is an acid with dairy in it (you'll learn more about lactic acid later)! If I used this face wash, I would still get an allergic reaction to it because I'm touch sensitive to milk. Allergens are everywhere!

Okay, now that you know that it's important to read every label, not just food labels, we can really get started!

The #1 tip that I highly recommend to everyone with an allergen or allergens does is use the producers to your advantage. Okay, that was a weird way to put it, but on most products, there's a "May Contain...", "Produced in a facility that processes", or "Made on equipment that also processes..." at the bottom of the ingredient list. It's a requirement by the Federal Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act to have this on your product if you want to sell it because people with food allergies use this to check if their allergen is in the product! When reading a food label, I always look at the bottom of the list to see if a "May Contain..." is at the bottom before reading the actual ingredients. Doing this can save you a lot of time; the "May Contain..." is basically summarizing the label for you!

Another thing that my mom told me about was to learn all you can about your allergens. If you're allergic to fish, shellfish, or tree nuts, go online and memorize all the tree nuts, fish, or shellfish there is out there so you can recognize any form of your allergen on a label. For example, my mom told me a while ago that lactic acid is an acid with dairy in it, so I should avoid all products with lactic acid on the label, even if there's no "May Contain" written at the bottom of the ingredients. I also know a lot of names of tree nuts and what my main triggers are for tree nuts (or what tree nuts can cause the worst reaction), but I'm still learning names all the more recent tree nuts...there are a LOT of tree nuts out there!

Thank you for reading My Food Allergy Life. I'll be posting "How to Read a Label (Part 2)" shortly. Talk to you then!

The Allergist

Hello everyone! Today I'm going to talk about the allergist appointment that I had a little while ago. I meant to write about this sooner, but anyway, let's get started!

So I went to the allergist mostly to just get new Epi-pens (they can expire, so every year we just get new ones), new inhalers for my asthma, and to revisit old paperwork that may need updating. We always have my allergist appointment right before school starts so all my new teachers and the nurse have updated information and aren't confused with old information. We made sure to get all the medicine we needed and my mom also had to fill out a lot of forms.

I was also given a skin test so we, my mom, the allergist, and I, could see if any changes had come up, either good or bad changes. A skin test is basically where you are given what I call pokes, or less painful versions of shots (the shot doesn't go into your blood stream) of a serum or sample of the food you are allergic to. The shot is basically a plastic, sharper than usual toothpick (the nurse called them "toothpicks with an attitude"!). The nurse dips the shot in the serum, which has your allergen in it, and sticks it in your arm. It literally feels like your sibling pinching you, but only for a second. Before you are given the shots, the nurse usually draws dots or lines or your arm so they know exactly where to put the shots. I was given a shot of milk (dairy), pistachio, walnut, hazelnut, cashew, and pecans.

They also always give you two extra shots, one of histamine and one of regular water. They call these shots the controls because they tell the nurses and the allergist if the test can be trusted. If the test can be trusted, the shot of histamine should be big, red, and itchy, and the water shot should obviously not have any growth at all.

I was going to take a picture of my arm so you could see what my arm looked like, but I forgot, so here are my results. The milk, cashew, and walnut shots were the biggest, or caused the worst reaction, which tells us that I'm allergic to these foods. These shots don't show severity levels of food allergies, but I know from skin tests in the past that my allergies to these foods won't be outgrown in my body anytime soon. Pistachio and pecan shots were also pretty big and itchy, but the only shot besides water that wasn't very big was hazelnuts. My mom and I were hoping for me to outgrow walnuts, but I think that shot caused the largest and itchiest reaction :(. The hazelnut news wasn't very important to us, so we didn't bother with any investigations of them.After my skin test results were measured and recorded, I was given LOTS of Benadryl to help with the itching. My arm was extremely itchy!!

So there aren't really any hopes of me outgrowing anything, but you never know. I might be able to someday.

Thanks for reading! Talk to you next week!!

My Favorite Foods, Food Allergy Friendly Style!

Hi there! Today's post is going to be about how I can enjoy foods that people without food allergies eat. Some things I obviously can't eat, but I can eat similar to what others eat. Check it out!

The foods I have to avoid are dairy, tree nuts, and sesame seeds. I'll tell you a little about the substitutions and strategies we've developed throughout my life. I'll also tell you about my egg allergy and how we avoided that (but I don't need to avoid eggs anymore because I'm no longer allergic to them!)

Dairy: 

Dairy is definitely difficult to avoid. Dairy is in cow's milk (duh!), all sorts of cheeses, ice cream, yogurts, sour cream, cream cheese, butter, margarine, some types of cookies, cakes, cupcakes, and pastries that you buy at a grocery store, cereals (and not just chocolate cereals), granola bars, chocolate and other types of candy, marshmallows, certain chips, popcorn, whipped cream/any sort of heavy cream, cottage cheese, and even more. Dairy is in a lot of foods, drinks, and products, so having a dairy allergy has definitely been a huge challenge. I can still eat a lot of foods though. Companies like Silk make delicious alternatives for things milk and ice cream. Instead of drinking cow's milk, my whole family drinks Almond milk (super yummy! I'll talk more about why I can have almonds but not any other types of tree nuts later.) Instead of cheese, we buy soy cheese, which instead of being made from dairy, it's made from soybeans. We also buy something called So Delicious (basically soy ice cream) instead of ice cream, soy yogurt instead of yogurt, soy sour cream instead of sour cream, soy cream cheese instead of cream cheese, soy margarine instead of butter or margarine, a certain type of chocolate bar called EnjoyLife instead of regular chocolate, coconut cream instead of whipped cream, you get the idea. I have an abnormal amount of soy in my diet only because it's one of the easiest substitutions. I used to drink soy milk when I couldn't eat almonds, but now I drink almond milk because it got some of the soy out of my diet.

Tree Nuts: 

I have an anaphylactic allergic reaction if I eat any type of tree nut besides almonds. This means I get a very bad, life threatening allergic reaction, which is why it's especially important for me to stay away from tree nuts.The reason I can have almonds is because I did a challenge for them and I luckily outgrew them. I now love eating almonds and they're so delicious and I'm very grateful that I can eat them. Because I can eat almonds, my mom and I will be trying to have me outgrow another type of tree nut this month in hopes that I can someday eat lots of types of tree nuts. Tree nuts are in lots of breads and baked goods, but they can also be found in granola bars, candies, and even strange things like lotions and face washes! (Dairy can also sometimes be found in lotions, but I've never found one!) I basically avoid any products with tree nuts in them, but if I'm baking at home and the recipe calls for walnuts or some other tree nut, I will usually just substitute almonds in.

Sesame Seeds:

Sesame seeds are by far the easiest allergy to live with out of all my allergies. The only things that I can't eat, as far as I know, because of sesame seeds are hummus and some types of rolls and breads, but that doesn't really matter that much to me because there are other sesame free breads that I eat and if I really want a similar type of dip as hummus, we make a bean dip for me. Luckily sesame seeds aren't found in as much foods as dairy is.

I used to be allergic to eggs but I outgrew my allergy a while ago and can now enjoy anything with eggs in it. I can't really remember what we used as substitutions, but I do remember it wasn't easy!

Thank you for reading this week's post. Talk to you next week!

Impacting Others...at Summer Camp!

Hello hello hello! Today's post is going to be about this project idea that I created at this year's summer camp. Hope you enjoy!

I've never actually been to a sleep-away camp, but I have been to day camps. Just a month ago I went to a camp called Inventor's Club, where we got to work on projects in groups of two, making things like pinball machines, paper airplanes that really flew, and straw towers that could hold tennis balls (Yikes! That was a difficult task!) At the end of the camp, we got work individually on actually inventing something practical and that would help other people. Whether the people we wanted to impact were our friends or the whole world, our teachers that ran the summer camp helped us create presentations to help explain our ideas to the rest of the kids at the camp. Some people made simple things and even made models to further show what their finished product will look like. Others took advantage of the technology we have today and made things that would use computers or phones to function. I decided it would really cool to make an app. Little did I realize the possibilities behind this little app.

I had a couple ideas of what I wanted the app to do, but in the end, I decided that I wanted to make the app for people with food allergies.  My idea was that when people downloaded the app, the app would have them fill out what they were allergic to. The app would then save this information. Once people had filled this in, people could scan a barcode of a product in a store (or anywhere, really!) and the app would read for any allergens in the product and it would tell you if there were any allergens in the product.

I thought this would be a good idea because it wouldn't just impact a couple people I knew. It would probably impact lots of people in my neighborhood, or my school, or my town, or my state, maybe even the whole country. It might even help the whole world! Pretty freakin' amazing!

But of course, making a complicated app like this one isn't as easy as 1-2-3. I found a free app-maker online that I thought would work, but it was nowhere near the advanced type of thing that I needed. I talked to my teachers about the problem, and they said that I would probably have to communicate with some very important people and companies to get this thing to work. And by important people and companies, they meant companies like Apple, Microsoft, maybe even Google! I was told that during the school year I could join the Invention Convention club they have at my school to see these companies and get my idea out. They also said that in order for people to actually trust it, I would need to get a global food allergy company/website, like FARE, to give me a "stamp of approval", or look at my app and prove to everyone that it does work and it does what I claim it can do.

Wow! This app may be more work than I thought it would be! I'll probably be joining the Invention Convention this year so I can hopefully get my idea noticed. Maybe I'll get to meet Apple or Microsoft or Google so I can get my app created!

The Invention Convention starts in the spring. I'll tell you more about the app once I join the club.

Thank you for reading this week's post. Talk to you soon!

My Most Recent Allergic Reaction: Backpacking!

Today I'm going to be talking about my most recent allergic reaction that I had. When I had this allergic reaction, I was with my dad on a 3 day backpacking trip. We had just set up camp in the woods, basically in the middle of nowhere. For dinner, my dad used our little fuel stove to cook us up some cous cous with fish mixed in.

We had eaten the type of cous cous before, but we hadn't ever bought the type of cous cous with the seasoning packet that came with it. There wasn't anything that I was allergic to on the ingredient label, so we assumed the rice was safe. We had already eaten the fish before on a previous backpacking trip, so we knew for a fact that the fish was safe.

My dad poured the seasoning packet into the cous cous and fish mix and we started eating. When I started eating, the food was steaming hot, so I waited for it to cool down a little, but it was still hot when I finally started eating. Once I got about a quarter through my meal, my tongue felt puffy and itchy, but I just thought the super hot food was making it feel like that, so I waited for my food to cool down to lukewarm. After I ate a couple more bites, I knew something was wrong. My tongue was getting puffier and puffier and the puffiness wasn't going away. I told my dad, who took away my dinner and told me to get out my Epi-pen two pack, which had two Epi-pens and four Benadryl medicine packets in it. I was about to take some Benadryl when I realized my tongue felt better. My dad had me wait on taking the Benadryl, and after about five minutes, the puffiness was completely gone. I felt perfectly fine again, but instead of finishing the cous cous and fish, my dad made me a peanut butter and apple bagel sandwich. We both knew that I could eat the apple, peanut butter, and bagel, so I ate that instead to fill me up.

It was very scary to be out in the woods, nowhere near the road, having an allergic reaction. Having an allergic reaction at home or somewhere near the emergency room is scary, but you know that you can get to the hospital within a couple of minutes. Out in the woods, it was definitely very, very scary because if we called for an ambulance, they wouldn't be able to get to us. There was no way an ambulance truck could could come and get me, and it probably would've even been hard with a helicopter because we were surrounded by trees. I'm very glad that my dad was there with me and that I wasn't alone while I had this reaction.

Now, my dad and I will never go backpacking with foods that we haven't had before, and we'll be extra cautious next time we go for a backpacking adventure.

Thanks for reading! Talk to you in my next post!

My Experiences-Q and A

Hi there! Today I'll be talking about the different types of questions that I've been asked about in school, at relative's houses, friend's houses, birthday parties, and summer camps.

In the past 8 years, I've been asked lots of questions about my food allergies. Lots of people at school would ask me easy to answer questions, like "What are you allergic to?" and "Do you have to touch the food to get an allergic reaction or do you have to ingest (eat) it?". You might think that the only people that ask me questions about my food allergies are my friends from school, but my relatives, teachers, classmates, neighbors, and family friends also ask me about my food allergies. Today I'm going to be answering an assorted list of questions that I've most been asked. Let's get going!

What are you allergic to?
Oh, that's an easy one! The foods I'm allergic to are all tree nuts except almonds, dairy, and sesame seeds. I also have seasonal allergies; I'm allergic to pollen from trees and grass.
Do you have to touch the food to get an allergic reaction or do you have to actually eat it?
I am touch sensitive, which means that if I touch a food that I'm allergic to, I have a risk of getting a reaction. So, I either have to eat the allergen or touch it.
What food allergy do you dislike the most?
I think the food allergy I don't like having the most is dairy, but the food allergy that I least want to have an allergic reaction to is tree nuts, especially pistachios. The reason for this is because I'll get an anaphylactic allergic reaction if I eat tree nuts, which means I'll get a life threatening allergic reaction instead of a less severe allergic reaction like I may have for dairy or sesame seeds.
How many allergic reactions have you had?
Well, I've had only one anaphylactic allergic reaction in my life, which was to one pistachio, when I was three or four years old, but I also had an allergic reaction to yogurt when I was about one year old. Another allergic reaction I had was when my dad accidentally switched my soy milk and my sister's cow milk at dinner, so I had a minor allergic reaction to that, when I was probably 8 or 9 (we no longer have plain cow milk in our house!) I also had a minor allergic reaction to some french fries at my sister's birthday party (I was around 10 years old). These were the most major allergic reactions that I've gotten.
If you could be allergic to just one food out of the three you're allergic to, which would it be?
Probably sesame seeds because they aren't in a whole lot of foods. The only things I might eat if I wasn't allergic to sesame seeds is hummus, some types of crackers, some types of trail mixes, some types of breads, and some types of seeds that use the same equipment as sesame seeds.
Which allergic reaction was the worst?
Definitely the anaphylactic allergic reaction that I had when I was three or four years old. One night, I had eaten one pistachio and I had gotten many symptoms that hint at an anaphylactic allergic reaction. I had to take my Epi-pen and I was sent to the hospital.
When did you first discover you had food allergies?
I think when I was one, when I had the allergic reaction to the yogurt. When we went to the allergist to figure out what was wrong, he said that I was allergic to dairy and eggs (I outgrew my egg allergy later).
Were you born with food allergies, or did they "pop up" throughout your life?
My food allergies have come up throughout my life, and maybe more will!
Do you like having food allergies?
Eh, it's okay. I like being unique but it's a pain because I always have to read labels and pay close attention to how I'm feeling and bring my own food everywhere.
When was your most recent allergic reaction?
Haha, I won't tell you this one! This question will be covered in my next post. Watch for it!
What's getting an Epi-pen/having an allergic reaction like?
I haven't had an allergic reaction that requires an Epi-pen in a long time, but I do remember that it's hard to stay calm, especially if you're having breathing problems. Staying calm is supposed to help, but it's almost impossible if you aren't with someone.

Sorry about how long this post is! Thanks for reading and watch for my next post: My Most Recent Allergic Reaction: Backpacking!

What's Wrong with Me?

In older posts I've told you how to use epinephrine injectors, but how do you know when a minor rash becomes a threat? How do you know when to dust off your Epi-pen? The question, what symptoms mean an anaphylactic allergic reaction, is often overlooked. It's important to know how to use your Epi-pen, but also when to use your Epi-pen. Sometimes, a simple case of eczema can be treated with an ointment or pill that doesn't result in a trip to the emergency room. And a sore throat could be a sign of strep throat or the common cold instead of an allergic reaction. This post will teach you what symptoms mean GET YOUR EPI-PEN AND PHONE NOW and what symptoms mean DON'T FREAK OUT BECAUSE YOU'RE OKAY!! Alright, let's get going!

When dealing with anaphylaxis, it's important to be alert at what symptoms you're getting. If someone is having an anaphylactic allergic reaction, every second is crucial. Everyday Health says that these symptoms mean anaphylactic allergic reactions:

• Cough, difficulty or irregular breathing, wheezing, itchy throat or mouth, and difficulty swallowing
• Nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea
• Itchiness, red bumps on the skin (hives), and skin redness
• Dizziness, lightheadedness, heart palpitations, chest discomfort or tightness, mental confusion, weakness, lower blood pressure, rapid pulse, loss of consciousness, and fainting.

Wow, that seems like a lot of symptoms! Let me break this down for you; any serious, uncontrollable breathing problems, stomach problems (like vomiting and diarrhea), serious, large, or worsening rashes, irregular pulse, and any sort of not being conscious is a problem. If you have one, multiple of the same type (like coughing and difficulty swallowing or skin redness and itchiness), or a mix of these symptoms, it's time to follow your emergency plan, which would mean call 911, administrate epinephrine, take any other medications that you have been prescribed to take, and attempt to stay calm. Staying calm can actually keep your symptoms from getting worse. If you start to panic, you have a higher chance of increasing amount/severity of symptoms. If you have symptoms that don't seem to be worsening and the symptoms don't seem too severe (as in you can go about your daily life with these symptoms without much trouble), then you should contact your doctor, physician, and/or allergist and take an over the counter medication such as benadryl or whatever else you are instructed to take.

I hope this information helps you in the future. Talk to you in my next post!  

Restaurants: How to Stay Safe

Hi there everyone! Today I'm going to talk about my experiences with restaurants and what to do if YOU go to a restaurant and have food allergies.

So I've only been to a restaurant and actually eaten their food twice. They were really meaningful to me. The first one was at a restaurant in Disney world. I was maybe 6 or 7 years old and I was very excited when I figured out that the chef talked with my mom and promised to make me a safe meal without any dairy, tree nut, or sesame seeds in it (I may not have been allergic to sesame seeds yet, but I don't remember. I also could have been allergic to eggs still back then, but it was a while ago, so I don't exactly remember.) The chef made me an amazing pasta dinner and a delicious ice cream dessert as well.

The second place I went was for my 10th birthday. My family went to the American Girl store, where I got my American Girl doll, Kit.We ate lunch there, and the cooks made me a spaghetti lunch. There's a picture of me at the cafe below.

My suggestions for you are if you're going to a restaurant and you have food allergies, don't expect the waiters and chefs to figure out you have food allergies! The best way to present yourself is to kindly ask to have a quick chat with the waiter or person serving you about your food allergies. Depending on what restaurant you're going to, it might be a good idea to bring a safe meal for yourself from home just in case the restaurant can't figure out how to serve you safely.

If you are going to try some of their food, be sure to tell the waiter or server about every food you're allergic to and also cross contamination risks. Presenting yourself kindly and working with the waiter or server nicely will be a good way to keep yourself safe and calm. If all else fails and you can't eat their food, you at least have a meal from home with you and you can still have a good time with the people you came with. Remember, experiences aren't all about the food. I've been to restaurants that can't serve me multiple times, and I still had fun with my family. One more thing before I wrap this post up: ALWAYS REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR EPI-PEN WITH YOU TO THE RESTAURANT! This is my biggest tip! It's so important to bring your Epi-pen with you!! Alright, see you later!

Here I am, at the American Girl cafe, eating lunch with my doll.