Food allergies are far different than seasonal allergies. In fact, food allergies can be deadly. When misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all, food allergies can cause anaphylactic reactions, which only give emergency responders minutes to stabilize.
However, when it comes to managing food allergies in your child, there are things you can to do to keep them safe.
Continue reading to learn what to do if your child is struggling with deadly food allergies.
What Type of Food Allergies Are There?
People can be allergic to any type of food. Some have rare allergies such as dried fruit, while others suffer from common ones like milk or fish. Parents can find out what food their child is allergic to through an allergy test.
Here is a brief list of some of the most common food allergies in children:
– Nuts
– Eggs
– Peanuts
– Milk
– Fish
– Soy
In rare cases, a child may be allergic to mangoes, marshmallows, red meat, and even sesame seeds. Regardless, once you’ve found what foods your child is allergic to, the first course of action is to keep them away from the offending agent.
What Are The Symptoms of a Food Allergy?
Similar to regular allergies, there are a lot of symptoms to look out for. When a child consumes something they’re allergic to, their body treats it as a harmful substance. In turn, their immune system produces antibodies to fight it off. However, that’s not all that occurs.
When an allergy is consumed, the body also produces chemicals such as histamine. Histamine is one of the chemicals that causes a person to experience symptoms due to being exposed to an allergy.
The symptoms that can occur include:
– Difficulty breathing
– Coughing
– Hives, which is a type of rash
– Stomach pain
– A feeling of tightness in the throat
– Nausea
– Vomiting
– Diarrhea
– Red, swollen eyes
If the reaction is severe enough, a person may experience symptoms like low blood pressure, lightheadedness or pass out. If your child experiences any of these, you need to go to Premier Allergy and Asthma right away. It’s worth mentioning that it’s not uncommon to confuse the symptoms of food allergies with food intolerance.
Food intolerance isn’t exactly an allergy because it has nothing to do with the immune system and is hardly ever a cause to visit Premier Allergy. Some of the symptoms of intolerance include belching, gas, headaches and indigestion.
How is a Food Allergy Diagnosed?
Premier Allergy has a few ways of diagnosing your child’s food allergies. Before we’re able to do so, we must know what symptoms your child has been experiencing, how often and severe the reaction is and who else in the family has the same allergy. After obtaining this information, one of two tests will be performed; a skin test or a blood test.
A skin test involves gently pricking a child with a liquid form of a food they’re supposedly allergic to. It is usually performed on their back or their forearm. The goal of this test is to see if they will develop a rash. You’ll usually have to wait at least 15 minutes for the results.
The blood test, on the other hand, is different. The blood test involves taking a few vials of blood to determine the amount of antibodies are in them after coming in contact with certain foods.
If you suspect that your child has a food allergy, call Premier Allergy and Asthma to schedule an appointment or to learn more information today