The Reality of Living With Food Allergies
Unless you’re living with food allergies, or caring for someone who is, you may not fully understand the impact of living with dietary restrictions. As a dietitian living with food allergies, I feel it’s my responsibility to share my experiences, tips and tricks to spread awareness this Food Allergy Awareness Month.
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by SunButter, however, like always, all opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make CitNutritionally.com possible! 🙂
Just this past weekend I was going through my usual Sunday evening routine of preparing breakfast for the week. Overnight chia oats was our breakfast of choice. I was about to scoop into a new bag of chia seeds, when the food allergy detective in me casually examined the new bag. Yup, those are definitely sesame seeds sprinkled throughout. I immediately put the measuring spoon in the dishwasher and the chia seeds in the garbage. I was annoyed, aggravated, and frustrated.
I, along with 15 million other people in the United States, live with life-threatening food allergies (mine to tree nuts and peanuts, along with a severe allergy to sesame seeds).
Feeling unsafe in your own home – even if it’s momentarily – is never a good feeling. And it was 100% out of my control. It was because of a company’s packaging procedures, poor cross-contamination practices, with no warning on the label.
Most people take feeling safe around food for granted. I would never wish to take that security away from anyone. That’s why I’m so passionate about the brands, like SunButter, that help the millions of us with food allergies feel safe.
Food is a necessity to stay alive, which means you have no other choice but to figure out how to navigate the world with food allergies.
But there’s good news: living with food allergies is doable.
Yes, you learn to be a detective, extra cautious, and your own advocate. But you don’t have another option!
It sounds scary and intimidating, and quite frankly, at times, it is. But with some extra attention, living with food allergies doesn’t have to get in your way.
If nothing else, I’m proof that it’s 100% possible to live a healthy, happy, carefree life with food allergies, once you get the hang of it!
[Tweet “Food is a necessity to stay alive, which means you have no other choice but to figure out how to navigate the world with food allergies.”]
My Food Allergy Diagnosis
To be completely honest, I feel extremely lucky to have developed my allergies how I did and when I did. I don’t know life without them.
When I was 3 years old, I ate a cookie at a family holiday party. My parents say I developed hives and uncontrollable itching. Luckily, my uncle is a pediatrician and always had an emergency bag in the car with Benadryl. That week, I went to the allergist and my diagnosis was confirmed.
In the blink of an eye, my parents had to figure out how to raise a child and family with food allergies.
I could no longer eat whatever I wanted, we could no longer have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a whim, and meticulous planning was put forth for every family outing.
I’m sure this wasn’t easy for my parents, but I don’t remember feeling deprived or restricted growing up. It was a family affair, which is probably why my older brother is still (we’re 30 & 32 this year!) so over-protective when we’re out and something has nuts.
We were simply a nut-free house and I always felt safe eating.
Learning About and Embracing My Food Allergies
It wasn’t until I went to school that I remember learning about my allergies. I can joke about it now, but my mom essentially brainwashed me: “If you can’t read it, you can’t eat it.” But it worked, and that’s exactly what I teach my clients too. There is no negotiation!
I asked my mom how she explained it when I was too young to really understand, and she said it was a consistent conversation where she calmly, without scaring me, explained that certain foods can “hurt me.” I can’t think of a better way to explain food allergies to kids.
As a dietitian, I want all parents to empower their kids to be in charge of their own bodies and health. If you’re raising a child with food allergies, it’s important to frame your message in an age-appropriate manner. Categorizing foods as “hurtful” may be helpful, without inducing fear.
[Tweet “Sharing my story – Learning About and Embracing My Food Allergies”]
I always knew certain foods were off limits, but for the most part, I am so incredibly lucky that my allergies didn’t interfere with my life. My parents made sure of that (thanks mom and dad!), but there were definitely times I knew something was different…
- When my mom packed my own cupcake for birthday parties and special snacks for the 6th grade overnight trip …
- When my mom’s biggest concern when I went off to college was that I would kiss someone who ate a peanut butter sandwich for dinner in the dining hall… (insert emoji hitting myself in the face!)
- When every grocery store trip includes an extra 15 minutes for meticulous food label reading… (but hey, maybe that’s why I became a dietitian!)
- When ordering food at a restaurant always comes with a caveat…
- When I fly and always seem to forget to call the airline about my allergy, so I sit there praying that the person next to me doesn’t open a bag of cashews…
Being different isn’t easy, especially for kids. But living with food allergies doesn’t define who you are. Like any medical condition, it’s a part of you, but it’s not YOU. Thankfully, my parents, siblings, and friends always normalized my allergies. I don’t remember being teased, or if I was, it didn’t stick with me. Unfortunately, that’s not usually the case. Kids with food allergies are TWICE as likely to be bullied than those without.
A big part of navigating my life with allergies was (and still is) embracing my allergies. Those of us with food allergies automatically have a label stamped on us. Wear it loud and proud… because it will protect you! I figured, if I couldn’t beat it (although now there’s hope!), why resist it? My bat mitzvah party theme was even “Go Nuts With Chelsey,” (If I only still had a picture!) where every centerpiece on the tables had a Mr. Peanut dressed up in some of my favorite activities: cooking, dancing, camp, etc.
So thank you, food allergies, for my trust issues.
Since I’ve been living with anaphylactic food allergies for 27 of my 29 years, it’s second nature to me. I’m used to meticulously reading labels, asking a gazillion questions at restaurants, skipping most food at weddings (too high of a risk of cross-contamination!), getting frustrated when my family is over-protective (even though they mean well), and always having a snack on me in case there’s nothing safe to eat when I’m out.
Some people have trust issues due to a bad relationship, others because of a medical diagnosis… I’m clearly the latter!
There’s a lot of trust that goes in to eating food prepared by other people. While I was taught to always ask about ingredients, there’s some baseline level of faith that’s needed when eating someone else’s food.
- Every time you’re at a restaurant you put your life in someone else’s hands.
- Every time you kiss your partner, you trust that he or she didn’t eat anything you’re allergic to.
- Every time you buy a packaged food at the supermarket, you trust that there wasn’t a mistake in the packaging (hellooooo my chia seed story!)
I feel you and I get it.
When Trust Fails You…
But there are times when that trust will fail you. And that’s why being prepared is non-negotiable.
It was night 3 of our honeymoon and we went for dinner at a cute farm-to-table restaurant in our hotel. We placed our order and I gave the waitress my allergy “shpiel.” You know what I mean… The “I’m severely allergic to…” rundown that makes eating at a restaurant a littttle bit more doable.
I took two bites of an octopus salad and immediately felt off. I have no other way of explaining it, except for that I felt as if my blood was draining from my veins. Of course, because I was eating, my first thought was “this is it… this is what an anaphylactic reaction feels like.” Because no matter how prepared you think you are for when it happens, you just don’t know. And in my 29 years, I’ve luckily navigated life carefully enough to avoid a significant allergic reaction.
I was also confused because my throat didn’t feel like it was closing, I didn’t have hives or a rash, and I wasn’t itchy. I just felt a burning feeling, heart palpitations, and shock.
Without saying anything more to my new hubby than “something’s wrong,” I got up, EpiPen in hand, ran to our room, and took 2 Benadryl. I ran to the hotel front desk and had them call 911. I don’t have a good reason as to why I didn’t use my EpiPen. This isn’t meant to be a “what you should do in my situation” story. Definitely not. Perhaps part of me knew that I wasn’t having a true allergic reaction (my throat didn’t feel like it was closing, I didn’t have a rash, I had no gastrointestinal symptoms, and I was breathing fine). I trusted my gut, though, that something was wrong and got the help I needed.
When EMS arrived, they took my vitals, and I was stable. They said that given my symptoms, they also didn’t think I was having a real anaphylactic reaction.
So what was going on 2 bites into dinner? What was in my food? The hotel chef came to the lobby and told my husband he used a separate grill and made sure there was no cross-contamination. However, since my symptoms did occur while I was eating, I decided to go to the hospital, just to be safe, EpiPen still in hand.
It’s so hard to explain the feeling of fear that I was pumping through my veins. I’ve never been more nervous in my life.
At the hospital, all my tests came back normal, so they monitored me for a few hours. My symptoms eased, and I left the hospital unsure of what really happened. (Dehydration? Panic attack? A minor allergic reaction?)
I still don’t know what exactly happened that day to cause my body to react the way it did, but I do know that I was EXTREMELY lucky. Allergic reactions send someone to the emergency room every 3 minutes. Many people aren’t as lucky as I was, and even more so, if they don’t have their life-saving epinephrine nearby.
Life-Saving Fact: ALWAYS carry your life-saving epinephrine!
Moving On…
This is just one example of the billions out there of how living with food allergies makes it difficult to trust the environment around us. Plain and simple.
To say this experience heightened my hesitations around food is the understatement of the century. In the weeks after this scare, I’ve been more careful than ever before about every morsel of food that I eat (and trust me, as a dietitian with food allergies, I was careful in the first place!).
But this is part of the reality of what it’s like to live with food allergies.
Luckily, there are restaurants, bakeries, brands, and companies that support those of us with food allergies more than ever before.
In honor of Food Allergy Awareness Month, I’m excited to partner with the brands that make living with food allergies just a little bit easier, like SunButter, so I can share my story to hopefully help someone else out there. Because everyone deserves to feel safe when eating.
If you have food allergies, I’d love to hear from you: How do you handle living with food allergies?
XO