Talking Allergies

Nicole,

Yes, yellow #5 is in foods and yellow #6 is allowed in topical products (shampoos, soaps, etc.).

Haven't had anything with aspirin in several years. Stopped keeping it in the house when we had a child. Just plain Tylenol for the meantime.

Daisy

Sorry to interrupt your thread Nicole--saskmommy, you might also be interested in looking at _Additive Alert! What Have They Done to Our Food? A Consumer's Action Guide_ (published by Pollution Probe). It is based on research done in 1992 and was published 1994 (who knows, maybe they have updated it since then---I picked up a copy at a used book sale)

I'm not surprised that people react to food colouring.

A friend of mine has a son with ADHD and he's always gobbling up red food all the time: candy, popsicles, any pop with red, he just loves the colour red. She would buy tubs of swedish berries for him. I made a comment to her about it, that I had read that there might be a connection between red dye and ADHD, but she denied it and said she couldn't make her son stop eating his favourite things (she was also in denial with the ADHD for years, and when he finally got tested for it, he tested through the roof!). I guess it's easier to just pump him full of Ritalin.

I am not going to use food colouring anymore to decorate cakes.

I think I'll bite the bullet and spend the extra money on the probiotic yogurt too, saskmommy, I keep hearing more and more positive things about it.

_________________
15 year old - asthmatic, allergic to cats, dogs, horses, waiting to be "officially" diagnosed for anaphylaxis
12 year old - asthmatic, allergic to tree pollen and mold, OAS
Husband - Allergic to amoxycillin
Self - Allergic to housework only

From what I have heard food coloring can act like act like a drug and actually make a child (or adult) crave it, and feel withdrawl without it.

Helen,


I actually saw a book similar to this from alive books as well. I almost bought it at the health food store where I got the other one...but I have been buying books like crazy lately and I never actually expected to finish the other one in under a week. I'll look into that one. It is funny what I now enjoy and books I just can't stop reading. I actually was NOT a reader before a few months ago.

Nicole,

I bought probiotics at the health food store. I do not eat milk products, but I am sure the capsule form has a wider variety of strains and is in more abundance. Also, it is easy to just take one every morning. I used to get reoccurant bladder infections (like one every 3 months) and I have been taking probiotics for about 6 months and I have not had a bladder in that time. Hooray!!!

To decoate cakes I have been going mostly white with only colored accents...or trying to use cocoa as color. When I make cupcakes or muffins I get CRAZY with cupcake liners. I order from goldaskitchen.com, they have everything. My kids get so excited to get a carrot-flax-applesauce-wholegrain muffin if it is in a dora the explorer liner.

_________________
DD age 9 1/2 -peanuts, nuts,
DD age 7 1/2 - milk, eggs, chicken, peanuts, treenuts, cats, dogs,
DS age 2 1/2
Husband- asthma, eggs, treenuts, fish, shellfish environmental
Self - penicillan, eurithromiacin, mild laytex allergy.

LOL, Saskmommy, how cute about the dora liners, it's all in the packaging!

Well, I guess I don't hang out at the health food stores enough because I didn't know probiotics came in capsules! I will definitely look for these. I learn something new everyday.

_________________
15 year old - asthmatic, allergic to cats, dogs, horses, waiting to be "officially" diagnosed for anaphylaxis
12 year old - asthmatic, allergic to tree pollen and mold, OAS
Husband - Allergic to amoxycillin
Self - Allergic to housework only

Nicole,

When you look for probiotics, make sure to buy ones that are refrigerated. Room temperature can kill of some of the bacteria.
And store them in your refrigerator at home.

_________________
DD age 9 1/2 -peanuts, nuts,
DD age 7 1/2 - milk, eggs, chicken, peanuts, treenuts, cats, dogs,
DS age 2 1/2
Husband- asthma, eggs, treenuts, fish, shellfish environmental
Self - penicillan, eurithromiacin, mild laytex allergy.

Dear Nicole,
I can't believe that they put tartrazine in KD and popcorn!!!!! Tartrazine is yellow food colouring produced synthetically from petroleum. Your daughter was very brave that night at the movies. Thank God for that very kind woman.

-Monique

Thanks Monique,

You'd be surprised to know how many food items have tartrazine. All Jell-o flavours contain it except for the watermelon, a lot of candy contain tartrazine (Skittles for example), and a lot of cheese flavoured snacks.

_________________
15 year old - asthmatic, allergic to cats, dogs, horses, waiting to be "officially" diagnosed for anaphylaxis
12 year old - asthmatic, allergic to tree pollen and mold, OAS
Husband - Allergic to amoxycillin
Self - Allergic to housework only

Nicole -- I've noticed that my son is sensitive to foods with tartrazine (they make him unsettled) so we've just kept him away from them as best we can. Because so many candies/suckers, etc. have tartrazine, on the occasion that we give him those kinds of treats, we just make sure it's well before bedtime. I'm just curious though, you mentioned about Jell-O's watermelon flavour not having tartrazine -- do you have some sort of resource list for foods containing tartrazine? (kind of like the "foods to avoid when you have peanut allergy" list?) If you do, I'd love to see it...

Hi Ethansmom,

Unfortunately, no, I don't have such a list. This is just what we noticed while shopping. And that's only from the companies that are thorough enough to specify the food colour (tartrazine is also refered as FD&C no. 5). A lot of them just say "Food colouring", or "Colour".

There's no proof as of yet that tartrazine causes reactions, so most companies don't feel compelled to specify its presence.

_________________
15 year old - asthmatic, allergic to cats, dogs, horses, waiting to be "officially" diagnosed for anaphylaxis
12 year old - asthmatic, allergic to tree pollen and mold, OAS
Husband - Allergic to amoxycillin
Self - Allergic to housework only

yeah I've noticed that too. Usually I stay clear of anything that has artificial colouring / flavouring but thought it'd be interesting to see if such a list existed...

Ethansmom,



I think it can be either natural or artificial. I've read a few things that use the terms artificial and natural inconsistently. One thing I came across considered any "carbon based" source natural. Here's a link to tartrazine info...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartrazine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_colouring

_________________
DD age 9 1/2 -peanuts, nuts,
DD age 7 1/2 - milk, eggs, chicken, peanuts, treenuts, cats, dogs,
DS age 2 1/2
Husband- asthma, eggs, treenuts, fish, shellfish environmental
Self - penicillan, eurithromiacin, mild laytex allergy.

I just thought I'd give an update.

We went to see the anaphylaxis specialist in Toronto this Wednesday.

He asked my daughter what she ate before each reaction and what symptoms she had each time.

After listening to everything, he thinks that we should go back to Dr. Waserman so she can test my daughter with fresh corn and with some popcorn from the theatre where she had her reaction (the popcorn will get ground up and then tested on her skin). Apparently the serum they use in office to test for corn is not as efficient as the one for peanuts and nuts and other foods.

He's also testing her for systemic mastocytosis, which affects the mast cells and can create anaphylaxic reactions if I understand well. I have read up on it and I don't think that that's what my daughter has, but I understand it has to be ruled out.

So, 7 months after her reaction, I feel we are not closer to finding out what's causing this!

Does anybody know anybody with systemic mastocytosis?

And Eldi and Helen, how did you get tested for corn? Did you have to bring in fresh corn?

_________________
15 year old - asthmatic, allergic to cats, dogs, horses, waiting to be "officially" diagnosed for anaphylaxis
12 year old - asthmatic, allergic to tree pollen and mold, OAS
Husband - Allergic to amoxycillin
Self - Allergic to housework only

Hi Nicole -

Thanks for the update. Must be very frustrating to stil not truly know what caused your daughter's reactions.

A woman with the userID of Carrie joined the forum awhile ago - and she has mastocytosis. See

http://www.allergicliving.com/forum/vie ... fa1eb58edf

Also see
- http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/masto.htm
- http://cmsadmin.proboards43.com/

K.

_________________
Karen, proud Mom of
- DS1 (12 yrs): allergic to cashews, pistachios, Brazil nuts, potatoes, some legumes, some fish, pumpkin seeds; OAS
- DS2 (1o yrs): ana. to dairy, eggs, peanuts; asthma

Nicole, I'm sorry to hear that you are still left wondering. But at least it sounds like the dr. you saw had some good suggestions for investigating this. I've never heard of mastocytosis before!

Corn was one of my "allergies" about which my doctor was highly skeptical. . . so I don't think he would have gone to any great lengths to investigate if the skin prick test was negative. Actually, he initially thought the positive skin prick test to corn was a false positive. But he changed his mind when the RAST was positive too (there was a "moderate" amount of corn specific IgE). So I guess that I'm lucky that I reacted to the conventional tests even though they aren't that sensitive for corn . . .