Well, I have to say, I am not the typical blogger. I never really got into either the reading or writing of blogs but I was recently at one of the FAAN Allergy Walks and was invited to blog about my experiences with food allergies.

I was intrigued about the AllerDine site and what it might mean for my family. You see, my son suffers from a condition called Eosinophilic Esophagitus. It is a condition where naturally occurring types of red blood cells called eosinophils (E-O-SIN-O-FILLS) infiltrate the esophagus and wreak all sorts of havoc. There are different types of eosinophilic disorders whose symptoms vary with the type of disorder and the person’s age. They often mimic other conditions and many children go undiagnosed or are misdiagnosed for years. If it wasn’t for my tenacity and the fact that my son developed an alarming number of food, environmental and drug allergies, we probably would still be wondering what was going on with him.

I mentioned an alarming number of allergies. He had 42 food allergies, 8 environmental (all the ones that they have tests for anyway) and 4 drug allergies. I say had because, well, because there is no other way of saying it. With this disorder, his allergies are not always IgE or IgG mediated. Most of them are T-cell mediated. That means that his body can actually cause his allergies to fluctuate, in amount and severity. In addition, there can be false negative results, which is something that cannot happen with your typical allergies. Bizarre. Isn’t it?? Many factors contribute to these fluctuations, like not getting enough rest or catching a simple cold. There are no current methods of testing for T-cell mediated allergies so doctors rely on standard skin prick and RAST testing for guidelines on what to eliminate or potentially introduce into a child’s diet, if at all possible. The standard treatment for many of the eosinophilic disorders is to pull kids from food and put them on an elemental formula diet, which oftentimes results in a gastric or naso-gastric feeding tube.

Fortunately or unfortunately - depends on how you want to look at it - that is not the best option for our son. Since he has a plethora of environmental allergies, any of which could trigger those pesky eosinophils to infiltrate his esophagus, he most likely would continue to be symptomatic and suffer from the effects of his disease. This leaves us with few options, and those are experimental! We have tried a few of them over the years and have had some recent success with an experimental drug - so far.

Now life, for us, is not normal. We strive to make it as normal as possible. That includes taking our kids (we have two - the older sister has no allergies whatsoever) out to eat. It allows us to be normal within such abnormal circumstances. We have three restaurants that we can “safely” eat at. It would be wonderful to expand our dining repertoire and this site offers a measure of comfort in knowing what to expect from where.

We live in a state of constant variables. There is no escaping that for us. We are just trying to live a life that offers our family the opportunities for a little consistency, or at least the illusion of such. Going out to dinner - something that many people view as no big deal - is a great deal to us. It allows us that illusion, that just for a moment, we are the typical family. I have become a master of disguise in that I play the part of the confident and knowing parent, when in reality, I suffer the same anxieties that every parent with a food allergic child endures. AllerDine helps me with cope a little better with those anxieties, so thanks.