From an interview with
Dr. Chad Thornhill
McLeod Pediatric Gastroenterology

Food allergy reactions can run from an itchy mouth to severe seizures, as McLeod Pediatric Gastroenterologist Dr. Chad Thornhill explains.

This is a summary of Dr. Thornhill’s comments:
Food allergies are triggered anytime your immune system decides that it doesn’t like something you are eating. Your immune system usually keeps you safe from bad stuff. However, from a diet standpoint, it can react to proteins in your food. If you eat something that you’re allergic to, your immune system thinks it’s not supposed to be there and reacts to it.
 
The most common food allergies in children are very popular foods – milk, wheat, soy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish. Fortunately, they’re labeled very clearly on most food labels. Unfortunately, it’s 90% of what people eat.
 
Food allergy symptoms range from mild to very severe. On the milder end, you might sense an itchy mouth, upset stomach or a loose stool. In severe categories, we start talking about anaphylaxis. A person can’t breathe, has a hard time focusing, heart races and seizures. If they symptoms appear severe,  get to an emergency department quickly.
 
if you’re having very severe allergies, you want an epinephrine auto-injectors. If you’re having an anaphylactic reaction, treat it immediately. Yet, patients should go to the emergency department quickly. Do not take the view that, “I treated this and now I don’t have to worry about it.”

If you have been tested and you know you are sensitive to certain foods, the only way to really treat food allergies is to avoid those foods.
 
Then, there is food desensitization. Your child will be given incrementally increasing amounts of the foods to which they are sensitive. It is not teaching desensitization that allows you to have a  peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The goal of desensitization is preventing a severe reaction from an accidental exposure.  Maybe, you accidentally had that cookie with a bit of peanut in it. We want you to maybe get a little bit of the itchy mouth and not itchy mouth, can’t breathe, run to the ER.

Learn more about Dr. Thornhill.

Learn more about our adult GI specialists at McLeod Digestive Center in Florence or at Seacoast.