As a policy, my approach to handling food allergies is – ‘Take a deep breath…it is not the end of life! All it requires is a slightly modified lifestyle.’ I rarely let my paranoia show in social/ public situations. This attitude has reaped rich dividends in a couple of very important ways:
1) My son has learnt to be careful without feeling that he has a severe disability. He has a very matter of fact attitude towards his food allergies though he is just 6 🙂
2) Other parents do not feel that their child’s enjoyment has been compromised because of my son’s allergies.
However, this does not mean that I am ever careless. I keep an epinephrine auto-injector everywhere – at home, my pocket book, at school, my husband’s laptop bag and more! My son though very young already knows all about it and how it will be used if he ever needs it! The reason is simple – an epinephrine auto-injector (brand names: EpiPen, EpiPen Jr., Adrenaclick, Twinject, Adrenaline, Epi E-Z Pen, Primatene) can reverse the severe side effects of a massive food allergy attack – most importantly anaphylaxis and save a person’s life!
Storing the epinephrine auto-injector carefully plays a big role in ensuring that it is effective when needed. it is very tempting to keep the injector in the car because we are most likely to be closest to it when needed and yet we should not. Loved a CNN blog post on this issue so, sharing the same…
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/04/can-i-store-an-allergy-auto-injector-in-my-car/?hpt=Sbin
Allergy Foodie 