I have not posted on my main site about the food issues we have had with my daughter over the last few months. I did not want my main site to be overwhelmed with food allergy type posts.
I was waiting until we had the new section set up, but to be honest, part of me was also not ready to share our story. I needed time to step back, take it all in, and learn all I could about this newest food challenge.
Allergies and specifically food allergies run in my family, I am familiar with them, but nut and peanut allergies are a whole new and different thing to deal with. I am sure that those of you that have dealt with them know what I am talking about.
There is so much involved in dealing with nut and peanut allergies. It is overwhelming to realize all my daughter can no longer eat, and because she can’t, neither can we.
I think that has been the overwhelming part. Because of the severity of nut allergies, the whole house has to act like they also have a nut allergy.
However, we are adjusting. We have had time to step back and realize that it is not so bad, and it could be a lot worse. It could be a whole lot worse.
I am far from an expert on the whole area of nut and peanut allergies, so I am hoping to learn some tips and ideas from some of you that are more experienced at it than I am.
I plan to post more next week about her exact allergy and diagnosis, and how we discovered her allergy.
But for now I am curious, if you have a nut allergy, what is it? Are you allergic to tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, all three, or just certain ones?
I have a teenager with a tree nut allergy, we found out when she was in elementary school. And, yes, it is a big deal, and I think a lot of people don’t realize it can be life threatening. I never cook with tree nuts now, so I can relate. I think having multiple food allergies makes it more complicated. I don’t try to replace the nuts in things though, I just leave them out. For us, it’s just better to find new favorites. Good luck.
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Lynn,
Thank you so much for this post. My daughter 10 was just diagnosed with nut allergy. Poor girl was at a babysitters house when she had her reaction. Needless to say my heart sank that she had to go through this and I wasnt there to protect her and comfort her. Then my second youngest son is allergic to peanuts. Our lives have changed drastically. We too have had to cut out all nuts in our house. No more peanut butter, snickers, reeses peanut butter cup and more. Its crazy how much actually has nuts or some form of particles!
I feel like you know what and how we all feel when we are going through the same thing! So hard when you are not used to it and never have been around it. Thanks so much and I love your blog!!
I became allergic to nuts in my early 20’s (8? yrs ago) and agree it is a huge change and requires sacrifice all around. I highly recommend looking at Sunbutter- it is nut free and delicious, made of sunflowers in a nut-free facility and such. I have turned a few baked goods green because of chlorophyll if there is too much b soda or powder, just experiment.
I am glad you left this comment. My daughter does not like the texture of the sunbutter that we bought. Is there any of them that are smooth? She says the soy butter is not bad, but I have not cooked with that yet.
I use the creamy Sunbutter and don’t mind the texture at all. Sometimes I do need to mix the jar as it begins to separate a bit. Look at Sunbutter’s website to see the different varieties. I know a lot of your recipes also use peanut butter, if you can adapt them, texture shouldn’t be an issue. (I’m allergic to soy and tree nuts as well so I haven’t tried any other pb substitutes.)
My daughter has a severe tree nut allergy with mild allergy to peanuts and milk as well. We found out when we we fed her some walnuts shortly after her 1st birthday…we ended up in emergency because she was wheezing and coughing and she broke out in hives. Needless to say we have had an interesting couple years adjusting to this but we are getting pretty good at it. Living with it inside our own home has become second nature for us.
The one issue we are having is with my brother in law. He tends to make light of her allergy (joking, snickering, comments) and is generally disrespectful in general. He thinks we are over-reacting. We went over to his place for a visit a couple weeks ago and he was eating nuts. The visit was unexpected so I can’t really fault him for that. My problem is he continued to gorge himself on a 2 pound bag of mixed nuts, right there in of my now 3 1/2 year old daughter. He even held the container out at arms length right in front of her face. I quickly and calmly made an exit from that situation, but I am beyond angered and frustrated with him.
My expectation was for him to put the nuts away until we left. Am I out of line in expecting a little more consideration from him? And if not how else can I approach this? We have had talks with him explaining the severity of her allergy and that she’s only 3 1/2 and she can’t make those decisions on her own yet. I’m at my wits end with him so any advice would be helpful to me.
That is a tough situation, it sounds like he just doesn’t understand or care to understand. Have you tried asking him how he would feel if he was a young child and had others eat something he could not have in front of him? Maybe explaining it to him from your daughter’s point of view might help. Would he be willing to read stories of people that have died from nut/peanut allergies? Maybe he really do not understand that people die from it. I am really sorry that you are having to go through this. Situations like this make dealing with allergies even more difficult.