Tag: FoodAllergies

Extended expiration dates for EpiPen after stability review

Extended expiration dates for EpiPen after stability review – you might be able to hang onto the one you’ve got longer than originally thought. Lot numbers & new dates here:

https://www.epipen.com/en/about-epipen-and-generic/supply-information

#allergies #epipen #foodallergy #foodallergies

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Preventable Death. From Grilled Cheese. (Follow-Up)

reynard61:

eighteenbelow:

kelsonv:

Preventable Death: Grilled Cheese

If you are told a child in your care has a severe food allergy, believe them. Don’t kill a three-year-old with a grilled cheese sandwich.

According to his parents, staff at the preschool knew about his severe dairy allergy, but an adult gave him the cheese sandwich anyway. He ate it, went into anaphylactic shock, and died in the emergency room. No word on whether they gave him epinephrine. (New…

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Horrific.

So was the person who gave him the sandwich charged with negligent homicide? (I can read the article because I’ve used my allotment for the month.)

There’s an article at Allergic Living with some more info now (and no paywall), but the upshot is that it’s still under investigation. It’s not even clear at this point whether the specific person who gave him the sandwich was aware of the allergy (though they certainly should have been), or whether they gave him epinephrine, though it is clear that:

  1. The school was aware of his allergy
  2. The school didn’t call 911, they called his mother instead.

The school has been closed pending the investigation results, and new directives have been issued that childcare staff will call 911 in the event of a medical emergency.

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Food allergies are a real medical problem for millions of people.

Food allergies are a real medical problem for millions of people. For some it’s mild. For others it’s literally a matter of life and death.

When we ask about ingredients, when we turn down that homemade cookie, when we decline plans or ask to change them based on the kind of food available, we’re not being picky or looking for attention. We just want to live a normal life – like you – without worrying that our next meal is going to send us to the hospital (or worse).

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The annual Walk for Food Allergy is coming up, and I need your help to raise funds…

The annual Walk for Food Allergy is coming up, and I need your help to raise funds for Food Allergy Research and Education, an organization dedicated to, well, research and education about food allergies.

Food allergies can vary in severity from mild discomfort to immediately life-threatening. We’re still trying to nail down exactly what causes them to develop, why they’re on the rise (current estimates are 15 million people in the US alone), and what can be done to stop allergic reactions from happening.

Until then, the best we can do is:

  • Avoid the foods we’re allergic to as best as we can. (This depends on industry and food preparers labeling properly and trying to avoid cross-contamination.)
  • Always carry epinephrine injectors and always plan for the possibility of a trip to the emergency room.

FARE funds research, provides educational resources for everyone from allergic patients to the food industry, promotes awareness of the problem, and pursues advocacy for people living with food allergies.

I’ll be walking in the September 21 event near Los Angeles. You can help by donating here. Every bit helps. Thank you!

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Throwback Thursday: Stuck in the emergency room during Comic Con last year. Note the Graphitti …

Throwback Thursday: Stuck in the emergency room during Comic Con last year. Note the Graphitti wristband allowing me to buy one of their exclusives. I never made it back to the floor that weekend. Full story at K2R, but TL;DR is undisclosed peanut powder in a coffee drink put me into anaphylactic shock.

I’m hoping this year will go better!

On a related note, I’ll be participating in the Walk for Food Allergy in September, to raise funds for FARE, an organization dedicated to food allergy research, education, and advocacy. You can donate here.

Thank you!

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It’s always nice to see restaurants that not only recognize the reality and severity…

https://www.eater.com/2014/6/19/6207199/how-restaurant-pros-are-handling-the-surge-of-food-allergies

It's always nice to see restaurants that not only recognize the reality and severity of food allergies (unlike those who dismiss allergies as lies made up by attention-seekers who want to feel special), but are willing to help the rising number of people who have allergies have a nice meal out.

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when did he find out he wasn’t allergic/start eating normal foods?

itswalky:

I guess I should start from the beginning for the benefit of everyone.

When I was a kid, my little brother had allergies.  He was allergic to basically everything.  Milk, wheat, sugar, corn (specifically corn syrup) , mold, you name it.  He was seriously down to eating rice bread and water for a duration during his childhood.  We stopped celebrating Halloween and the candy parts of Easter and Christmas.

We would often travel downstate to Indianapolis to doctor specialists to get his arm full of shots to determine what all he was allergic to.  Just welts up and down his arms, trial and error.  It was excruciating for all involved (but proooobably moreso for my brother.)

When he hit his teenage years, suddenly these things were no longer a concern. He ate what he wanted, and things seemed to be fine.  The end, right?

My brother told me tonight, casually in conversation while driving around, I guess for the benefit of my wife but assuming I knew, that all that was a lie.  My brother was not really allergic to all those things. He was a little lactose intolerant and he did have a problem with mold, but my mom decided that he was allergic to everything, and constructed this world centered around finding more and more things he was allergic to.  But my brother eventually rebelled and ate what he wanted and OH HEY i guess it was all bullshit.

So that was a shock of a thing to learn.  It makes so much sense now that I think about things.  My mom fakes her own allergies all the time, and what she can and can’t eat depends on when you ask her and it never lines up with what she actually eats.  And once in my early twenties I told her that I had a bad reaction to eating bananas and she lit up like I’d given her this amazing gift.  I thought it was odd then but now oh my lord.

Anyway.

Jesus Christ.

WTF.

Yeah, I couldn’t watch He-Man, but my brother fucking ate rice bread and water for a few years.

Holy crap. Not only is that seriously awful for your brother, but actions like this actually harm those of us who do have severe food allergies. People who encounter this type of faking and see it exposed are that much less likely to take us seriously.

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