Month: April 2012

Food Allergies

Dreaming of Baked Goods Made With Real Eggs!

Jennifer Mulchandani

I can bake delicious cakes, muffins and breakfast treats that are vegan.  Not because we live a vegan lifestyle, we are happy carnivores, but because our youngest son has food allergies to egg and milk (among many other.)  For three years I have been making everything baked from scratch, and have learned some tricks for creating delicious replacements for all our favorites.  And even though I’ve become skilled in the art and science of vegan baking, I haven’t grown used to the absence of eggs in our recipes.  While everything tastes great, eggs provide a fluffy quality to baked goods that is hard to replace.  I have learned that using my stand mixer at a very high speed introduces enough air into the batter to help cakes rise a little bit.  But even then, the baked goods are very dense.

For the first time in years, now I am dreaming of baked goods made with real eggs!  That is because my son has been cleared for a food challenge using baked eggs!  It is Thursday, and I am both thrilled and nervous.  My son is almost 4, and should he tolerate the baked eggs at the food challenge, his birthday cake will be fluffy in June!  I’m trying not to get too excited about the implications, it is very possible that he won’t tolerate the egg and we will have to continue to avoid them.  My real goal is that he comes out of the food challenge with a good attitude, either way, and isn’t discouraged about his allergies any more than he already is.

My son has requested cupcakes for the food challenge, and the allergist suggested bringing in icing and decorations to help pass the time while there.  I’m torn about making the flavor he loves most, in case the challenge isn’t successful, I don’t want a negative association with chocolate cupcakes, or to have leftovers around that he would long to eat but couldn’t.

While I am worried about the emotional impact of the food challenge, I am not concerned about his safety.  Our allergist at John’s Hopkins University is a leading researcher on food allergies, and even oversees treatment studies to desensitize kids with severe food allergies.  Two of our nephews are also patients there, and one has completed the milk treatment study and is now enjoying all things milky, especially I am told, the Dorrito Tacos at Taco Bell!  The other nephew is in the egg treatment study.  And another friend of the family has a daughter who was anaphylactic to milk and is now cleared to eat anything with milk that she wants.  This research is what makes Hopkins so attractive to me.  I have said from diagnosis that if our son doesn’t outgrow these allergies on his own, we’ll try to get him accepted into the treatment studies.

In preparation for the food challenge, we have stopped his daily allergy medication that he uses to keep seasonal allergies at bay.  The timing is unfortunate as pollen counts are very high all week, but this is necessary for the food challenge, so any reactions to the food won’t be masked by the antihistamines.  And we are planning for many hours of boredom, in the hopes that the food challenge goes well and we will have to occupy ourselves with books and games and activities.

Please think good thoughts on Thursday, and know that I will certainly post the outcome as soon as I can.  And if all goes well, I think we’ll have a celebration next weekend, and everyone is invited for cake, made with real eggs!

Living Life

My Love/Hate Relationship With Running: Exercise-Induced Asthma Sucks

Jennifer Mulchandani

I have a dreamy vision of myself as being a runner.  The kind with lean leg muscles, moving gracefully down the path with a smile that says she is pushing herself and feeling great.  But the reality is that I am NOT a “runner.”  I have short stocky legs, and despite yoga and running making me strong, I am not lean.  And I am not a graceful runner.  In fact, no matter how often I run, or how much distance I work up to, its a crap shoot if I will be able to go a block without becoming completely winded.

I have exercise induced asthma (EIA).  Diagnosed in 7th grade, when I complained of not being able to do anything in PE.  I started treatment then, which allowed me to be a very active person.  Even now, I take a breathing treatment before I run.  If I don’t take it, I can’t get off my block.  But even with the treatment, there are many days that it isn’t fully effective and I can’t get more than a block or two without symptoms.

Exercise induced asthma symptoms are the same as any asthma.  Tightening of the chest, wheezing, difficulty catching one’s breath, and even a burning sensation in my lungs.  It sucks.  And when exercising, if the symptoms come on, it very well may mean the end of the work out.  Even if it has only been 5 minutes.  Sometimes I can slow waaaaaaaay down and regain my breath and then just walk.

I did speak with my doctor about this; she put me on Singulair — but I took myself off after experiencing negative side effects.  So I am resigned to dealing with my EIA, and I hate it.  It is very tempting to give up this running nonsense altogether, especially on days like today where I had such a bad reaction.  But I happen to love running.  See, a real love/hate thing can exist!

I try to feel lucky that I can predict the onset of my asthma.  Many asthma sufferers have attacks with no clear (or controllable) trigger, and that has to suck even more than knowing that exercise is a trigger.

Today will go down as a hateful attempt to run.  Hopefully tomorrow I will have the nerve to try again, because the trails are beautiful now, the weather perfect, and bathing suit season is approaching fast!

Food Allergies

Peanut explosion disrupts reaction-free week on vacation

Jennifer Mulchandani

As we prepped for our spring break trip, my husband said “let’s do this right and make sure he doesn’t have a single reaction.”  This relates to our string of experiences eating out over the past many months, as I discussed in my post on fear of restaurants.  Determined to avoid any displeasure, we planned and packed a significant amount of safe food and treats for the long drive to FL and back.  Very quickly into our trip, we realized that we could all enjoy our meals out so much more knowing he was eating what we packed.

So all was well and good.  Even our day trip to Legoland went well, again we packed his meals and he and we were happy.

But then there was the peanut explosion.

Back at my mom’s house, with my son’s siblings and 7 cousins, things were hectic.  So hectic in fact, that no adult took notice of two of the kids opening and eating a bag of peanuts on the porch and in one of the bedrooms.  There were peanuts everywhere, I mean everywhere.  Peanut shells, peanut dust, uneaten peanuts, in the crevices of the patio door, in the carpet, on a chair, on my son’s bed!

Did I freak out?  Almost.  I felt panic setting in, but I kept my cool and decided that I had to focus on clean up first.  My 7 year old who was part of the peanut eating frenzy was heart stricken when he realized the potential implications.  I think he was so thrilled to be somewhere that had peanuts!  In all fairness, and in full disclosure, I had seen the bag of peanuts on my mom’s porch the first day, and the adults all discussed that it would be best if we didn’t open them during our visit.  I obviously should have had those put away.  I’ve added it to my growing ‘live and learn’ list.

After an hour of cleaning up, including vacuuming, sanitizing, and changing the bedding, I was done, and pissed off — at myself and the kids.  I mean, couldn’t they have eaten them sitting in one place?  But also grateful.  Us adults kept saying we really got lucky.  With peanuts everywhere, who knew what could have happened!

My son did have a contact reaction from the peanuts; a swollen eye and hives, but luckily that is all it was. We failed at our goal of no food allergy reactions.  And yet I felt so very successful that in all the meals out he was safe, content and we were more relaxed than we have ever been eating out.

I’ll spend more time reflecting on what did go wrong, and surely put more effort to allergy-proofing our environment in the future.  And I’ll look for other people’s live and learn lists, so hopefully we can avoid other disaster prone situations in the future.