My 6 year old daughter, Zuzu, has a host of food allergies including to wheat, dairy, egg, tree nuts, peanuts and sesame seeds. We first learned about her allergies when she was just a baby. Minutes after eating her first baby yogurt, she broke out in hives all over her body. After that incident, my pediatrician advised me and my husband to hold off on introducing any other common allergens, such as wheat and egg, into Zuzu's diet until she could be tested for food allergies, which turned out to be very sound advice.
The subsequent testing revealed the extent of our daughter's food allergies. But the truth was, we were not all that surprised. Since birth, Zuzu's immunue system had been in overdrive. Zuzu had terrible eczema as a baby, and by the time we learned of her food allergies, she was already enrolled in a clinical trial for a new, non-steroid eczema medication.
Thankfully, Zuzu outgrew her eczema, but the food allergies have remained a constant in our lives. We consider ourselves lucky in that her allergies do not appear to be life-threatening; she has never gone into anaphylactic shock, for example, although we always carry our Epi-Pen with us, just in case. Nevertheless, caring for our daughter who cannot eat so many of the typical everyday foods that most kids enjoy has been challenging for our family. And I have learned that taking care of a child with food allergies has both a nutritional and an emotional component.
