Talking Allergies

I have just spent the last half hour reading every posting associated with sesame allergies and I have to say that I am so excited to find a place where someone (OK in this case Everyone) gets the sesame allergy!!! I am sooo tired of people sort of symbolically patting me on the head an and saying " well thank goodness it's not the peanut allergy-that's the REALLY bad one!!" If only they knew! My son is exquisitly allergic to sesame and now that he is becoming a teen I worry all the time! THANK you every one for participating here - I feel soooo at home!! I am a little more militant than many - I LIVE phoning cmpanies and letting them know very nicely that there is powerful buying public available for a company who can provide allergen - free products and how much I appreciate thier product- thanks for all of the tips - I will certainly put my money where my (son's) mouth is and support any company that can provide the goods! (and I will let them know about it too!) we should always say thanks to these companies! They really do try to listen to the public! ok tooo long for my first post!

I'm picturing a specific person when I read this. And NOW I laugh.

Welcome to the board.

Hi Willo, and welcome! It's always great to chat with others about sesame allergy since it is not as common as peanut, therefore, much more difficult to share ideas and information. I've found this forum to be a life-saver for us. My 4 yr old son is also very allergic to sesame - his allergy testing produces a 4+++ (he's also allergic to peanut, tree nuts, egg, fish, sunflower seed, mustard, poppy seed, green peas and pineapple - he was recently tested for his entire list of allergens, and he again displayed very dramatic positive results )).

Dealing with sesame has been our most challenging allergen, but I feel like we have it well under control now. In preparing all our own bread, pizza dough, etc, our son has been symptom-free for quite some time. It's such a relief to not worry about feeding him something as basic as BREAD! We never eat out at restaurants - it is way too risky. We bring our son's food with us whereever we go. Our friends and family are supportive, but it took some time before full awareness was there.

My son's school is now supportive of our son's allergy to sesame (it was a bit challenging, at first, to bring about awareness and acceptance of the seriousness of this allergy!). It's a small school - only 120 kids. The school now asks that parents to please not send in food containing peanuts, tree nuts and sesame. We are most concerned with foods containing "visible" sesame seeds as the seeds can fall off so easily and get into everything. We don't feel it is reasonable to expect the rest of our son's allergens to be eliminated from the school, but we had to focus on those that were the most concerning, and sesame is definitely one of them!

I look forward to chatting with you and sharing ideas!

When our daughter was first diagnosed with her peanut allergy I thought Ugh - this is going to be tough!

THEN she was diagnosed with the sesame allergy and it's definetly worse! When we tell people she's allergic to peanut & sesame they always focus on the peanut since that's what they know.

Julie - it's great that the school is willing to accomodate the sesame. I'm always worried about the visible sesame since they travel so easily to so many other things!

We're still in the learning process, although I'm not sure you ever stop learning about allergies???? This board has been great for information.

I am also *thrilled* to find you all. Sesame is quite challenging and not well known. It is super potent, like peanut and such tiny amounts can cause reactions. But it is not cleaned for like peanut so foods can have sesame X contam. My son has reacted to at least 13 products that didn't have any of his allergens labeled on them. I think most of these were to sesame X contam but some to dairy X contam.

I'm very happy to be here and look forward to sharing good info with you all.