Dairy Allergy in Public School

We are in school! We haven't found the perfect private school yet but we are in public school and managing food allergies when one is older than grade 2 seems to be not such a difficult task. Whew!

I provide wipes for the class after every recess/lunch. I have a conversation or two with the teacher when the school year starts. Epi pens etc are in the nurses office and epipen is with the child (something the child wld need immediately... Benedryl and asthma med is in nurses office).

I am still close by and often stressed by the whole thing... but it's much less stressful than trying to train a future MD (which he wants for his life) all by myself.

Lunch for my child can't be in the lunchroom - he is affected by touching dairy and then touchign his face/skin/etc... even if the dairy is not visible. This means he never really goes in the lunch area at all without walking away with 20 sneezes/face rash/ and needing Benedryl which knocks him out for 24 hrs.

We are looking into replicating the study at the Children's Hospital in Boston but know that to even qualify he has to have less than a 35 reaction on his blood test. We are awaiting his results.


In the meantime normal food precautions are ongoing: reading the ingredients on everything, eating out at only Asian restaurants and Steakhouses... and only places where they can control dairy cross contamination well.

We try to stay unprocessed and organic and sugerless and have vegan days when not eating out to give our immune systems a chance to do their best. Supplementing calcium daily and a multi-vit every few days.

My child maintains that a dairy allergy is not fun and socially limiting but he is atleast happy people are becoming more aware about food allergies in general.

I am a pretty silver-lining kind of gal and can somehow even survive the premature, unfair, horrific passing of my healthy-darling-joy spreading-world nurturing mother 2 years ago but there is one thing I think is, let's say, "not fun" about the allergy according to me:
When people say things like "my child has a severe dairy allergy" to try to relate to me and be kind and then describe things that sound like lactose intolerance... the only reason that annoys me is they may not take the precautions we need seriously... it's a safety thing (believe me I'm not on a mission to help everyone out there align all their wacky ideas with fact).

Yes, I am ending this entry on a negative and sarcastic note b/c my kids need me to go and do things for them...... gawd forbid I shld have a moment. LOL

XO - Keep on swimming. :-)

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Hi!
First time blogger here. It feels a bit Bridget Jones quite frankly to just post it all out there.
Maybe that's the wrong approach... hmmm... will have to think about that.

Charming mom, with 2 wonderful children (no I'm not biased at all) and darling hubby... homeschooler due to food allergies initially but now am possibly warming up to it.

Ta for now... baby waking up.
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