I’m Zoe and I have two daughters aged 8 and 5, both of whom have sensitivities to certain foods, as well as my husband! My 8-year-old is lactose intolerant and also used to be gluten intolerant. My 5-year-old was diagnosed with 6 food allergies at 1 year of age: milk, eggs, wheat, soya, oats and legumes (peas, beans and pulses). Thankfully she has now started to outgrow some of her allergies. She is now only allergic to uncooked dairy products and soya. This has opened up a lot more options for us and made life a lot less stressful.
Today I want to share some of the lessons we have learned along the way on our allergy journey so far.
Doctors don’t have all the answers
It’s a story that, sadly, many allergy parents will be familiar with. I visited the doctor with my baby in her first year of life numerous times only to be dismissed. She was already diagnosed with cow’s milk allergy from just 4 weeks of age, and yet none of the professionals we saw even considered that the symptoms she was experiencing could be due to further food allergies. This really shook my confidence in myself as a mum, to be constantly told there was nothing wrong when my instincts were screaming the opposite.
Diagnosis is just the beginning of the journey
On the one hand, finally getting a diagnosis was a huge relief! My baby had suffered for a long time and it had an impact on the whole family. It was great to know that there was such a simple solution to keep her well – just to avoid the foods she was allergic to. However, I soon discovered that trying to find foods that are free from milk, eggs, wheat, soya, oats and legumes is actually really, really difficult. Not to mention trying to go out for a meal, go to playgroups, soft play centres, visiting friends…the list goes on. There’s a steep learning curve involved and eventually it becomes your new normal, but every so often something comes along that throws you out of your comfort zone and gives you new challenges to deal with.
Food is everywhere!
Once you have to be careful around food you realise, it’s absolutely everywhere you go! Every social occasion seems to revolve around food. Special events, days out, celebrations. You can’t avoid it. This means a lot of planning and preparation for allergy parents to make sure that (a) our children can eat and (b) they don’t feel left out (especially as they get older and start to notice what others are eating). For example, baking cakes for a cake sale at which you will buy back the cakes you have made yourself. Bringing your own chocolate to an Easter egg hunt. Packing lunchboxes to take to birthday parties. It’s hard to be spontaneous, you can’t just rock up and hope there’ll be something to eat, everything has to be thought out in advance.
Our food is messed up
It’s only because I now have to read food labels all the time that I’ve noticed that a lot of our food contains a lot of weird ingredients! Like soya is in literally everything. It turns up in all sorts of unexpected places, from biscuits and crisps to gravy and bread. You have to read the labels of literally everything you buy to avoid any nasty surprises. Sliced turkey breast sandwich meat with added milk? What’s that about?
Whilst hunting for allergens, I’ve also started to realise that a lot of ingredients in food products are not really what I would consider to be food – just a jumble of additives and chemicals. Manufacturer’s recipes are often more about what sells than what we need to nourish our bodies. And the foods in the free from section are often even worse for this. As manufacturers try to replace the cheesy taste of cheddar or the fluffiness of cakes made with wheat to satisfy our cravings, they inevitably end up using some really weird ingredients.
Food allergies are invisible
Children with food allergies appear ‘normal’ to the outside world – they don’t seem any different to other children. This is a double-edged sword, as it’s great that our kids still get to do most normal kid stuff (as long as they bring a packed lunch), but at the same time it can be difficult for people to accept that they do have a medical condition. Some people may dismiss it as simply ‘being fussy’, because they don’t understand the consequences. It also makes it easy to forget for those who are not living with it on a daily basis. That means we have to be *that* annoying parent who is constantly going on about their child’s food allergies.
True friendship
Sometimes people will go the extra mile to make sure your child is included. I cannot tell you how great this feels when people do this. I am very lucky to have some close friends who have had my daughter for playdates, planning food with me in advance and sending me photos of food labels for reassurance (mine and theirs!). We’ve even been to birthday parties where the host has adapted the food to make it suitable for my little girl. I would never expect other people to do this, as I wouldn’t want to put that responsibility on them, but when they offer voluntarily to help in this way, it’s just fantastic! For kids with allergies, this makes so much difference, as all they really want is just to be the same as everyone else.
Having a child with food allergies has changed our lives in so many ways. We work hard to keep a balance between avoiding her allergens and allowing her the freedom to live as normal a childhood as possible. We want her to have the same experiences as her peers, as much as possible. I feel like we’re on top of things now but life still sends us a few surprises now and then!
Zoe T. Williams is passionate about supporting families with food allergies, having two daughters and a husband with multiple food allergies and intolerances. Right now, she is busy in the kitchen concocting new allergy-friendly recipes for her blog, My Allergy Kitchen. Her book, The Busy Parent's Guide to Food Allergies is out now on Amazon and aims to take allergy parents from overwhelmed to empowered in easy bite-size chapters.
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