In retrospect, Becker knows the reaction could have been far worse, and she’s thankful it wasn’t. Still, she wonders whether her in-laws were actually checking to see if her child’s allergy was real. “To this day, I believe he gave it to him to test whether I was making the whole allergy up,” she says, adding that after the incident, the in-laws took the allergy far more seriously. “It was strange, because I now had ‘proof’ of my son’s allergy, so I felt more comfortable making special requests and inquiring about ingredients.”

For 14 years, Rachel O’Neill* has tried to get her mother-in-law to understand. O’Neill, who lives in Ottawa, has explained again and again that her allergies to tree nuts and peanuts are a serious condition that could land her in the hospital – or worse – and that her oral allergies to carrots and celery are not the product of pickiness. Still, when she and her husband visit, O’Neill’s mother-in-law continues to dish out foods she’s allergic to, then remembers out loud that her daughter-in-law doesn’t “like” them.

O’Neill’s husband always speaks up about his wife’s allergies, and for the most part, his mother seems sympathetic enough – until it’s mealtime. “The most frustrating part is that the sympathy is there, but the follow-through is not,” explains O’Neill. “I find it exhausting that I constantly have to ask whether the food being served has nuts in it – then still can’t trust that the answers are legit.”

In Pickering, Ontario, another family was shocked to discover the source of their young son’s frequent bouts of illness was his own grandparents. In the dangerously misguided belief they were building up his tolerance, the paternal grandparents had been secretly grinding almonds into his cereal behind his parents’ backs, and it was making the child sick.

Amazingly, stories like these are not at all uncommon. Every day, adults and kids are diagnosed with food allergies or celiac disease, and they naturally expect that the people closest to them will take the most care – as they would with any serious health condition. After all, you should be able to trust your mom to keep gluten out of her gravy, and assume that, when your brother babysits your peanut-allergic daughter, he carefully reads the ingredients on that chocolate bar, right?

For too many living with food allergies and celiac disease, sadly the answer is no. In the fall of 2010, Allergic Living sent out a request for anecdotes of family experiences (both good and bad), and within days we were inundated with responses – dozens of stories about grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers and in-laws denying and ignoring their allergies, disputing them, and worse, triggering reactions that could be life-threatening.

A disturbing number told stories of disbelieving family members actually “testing” allergies or gluten intolerance by slipping the offending food into their or their children’s meals.

Not surprisingly, those telling the anecdotes feel hurt, upset and betrayed as close family relationships descend into pitched family battles. Sometimes full-fledged wars break out as communication melts down and both sides storm off in opposite directions. Along the way, many are left to ask, “Why doesn’t my family get my food restrictions?”

*Name changed by request

Next: The Need to See in Order to Believe

SCRATCH, scratch, scratch. It’s a sticky summer evening and I’m absently rubbing some tiny red bumps under the clasp of my watch.

Poison ivy, perhaps? I apply calamine lotion and think no more of it until I notice the same rash on my abdomen, where my jeans button happens to sit. I’d known for 20 years that earrings made my lobes itchy, but why were my watch and jeans suddenly a problem?

The culprit is nickel, the most common metal allergen. It turns out that because I’m sensitized to it in one place, I’m likely to react to it elsewhere on my body.

It’s a chronic condition, so I’m stuck with it for life. But at least I am in good company: nickel allergy affects up to one in seven women. That means I have around two million Canadian sisters suffering along with me. Of course, nickel allergy affects men as well, but in smaller numbers.

A nickel reaction generally shows up as an itchy, red, bumpy rash where something containing the metal, such as a necklace, a watch, a ring or a pair of earrings, sits against the skin.

The incidence of nickel allergy shot up in the 1990s; it used to hover at about 10 per cent of women, but has grown to 14 per cent. That’s because of the popularity of body piercing, the most common cause of the reaction.

When the wrong type of piercing tool is used, corrosion causes the release of nickel ions, which can leach onto the skin. The same goes for studs used while the ear lobes are healing.

For those of us contending with the allergy, earrings, other piercings and rings are obvious triggers. But like my jeans fastener, other nickel encounters are less apparent.

A glasses wearer may not initially make the connection between a line of red bumps and contact with a pair of nickel-laden spectacles, while a woman may wonder what is happening to her as an underwire bra rests against her irritated skin.

Nickel allergy sufferer Kathy Weber of Stroudsburg, Pa. recalls her also-allergic 9-year-old daughter’s reaction to a more obscure object. “She brought home her new trumpet – an instrument she’d been excited to play since kindergarten – and played it frequently over the next few days,” Weber says.

Her daughter soon developed itchy, blistering lips. Some quick Internet research uncovered a high nickel content in that particular mouthpiece. Kathy bought a poly-carbonate mouthpiece for her daughter and gave the nickel one to her trumpet-playing husband.

If you’re getting skin eruptions, you may wonder if nickel allergy is the cause. According to Dr. James Bergman, a Vancouver pediatric dermatologist and allergist, if it’s nickel allergy, the rash will typically show up as a well-defined, red area.

Reprinted from the Winter 2006 issue of Allergic Living magazine.

IT WASN’T the high point of Christmas 2003. During an afternoon party for friends and family at her in-laws’ home, Linda Wagner of Regina made repeated efforts to keep some distance between her tree-nut allergic son, then 4 years old, and the gourmet nuts brought as a gift by friends who knew nothing of his condition.

“I kept moving the bowl of nuts off the table and my mother-in-law kept putting it back on, until she got mad and I finally had to create a scene. Afterward, I asked when she was going to understand that peanuts and nuts can kill her grandson. Was he going to have die for her to get the severity of it?” The answer was no, of course. To Linda’s relief, the light bulb clicked on for her mother-in-law that day. “She now completely understands the seriousness because she loves her grandkids more than anything – even food.”

It’s a frustrating problem for parents with allergic children: sometimes family members just don’t grasp what food allergy is and how serious a reaction could be. This lack of understanding is often on display during the frequent family get-togethers of the winter holidays. But mistakes can happen throughout the year.

I clearly remember the Easter at my sister’s house in 2001. Our daughter, Cayley, then 3, and her cousins grabbed their baskets and raced into the backyard. As my husband and I watched our daughter gather eggs filled with candies that my sister had purchased – we suddenly realized that we hadn’t checked the package labels. My sister waved away our concern: “Don’t worry, there was no warning on any of them.” Our daughter had just been diagnosed with a peanut allergy, so we decided to check despite the assurance. There it was, under the ingredients, on all of the candy: “May contain traces of peanut”.

It happens no matter what the allergen. Leann McMonigal of northern Illinois recalls the day her mother-in-law sent over homemade cookies. She had labelled them “dairy-free” for her dairy-allergic grandson. “She had included the recipe,” Leann says. “The first ingredient was butter.” Leann just shook her head, and the teaching began.

Among allergic parents, there are innumerable scary stories of dealing with relatives. This can be one of the biggest challenges in adapting to life with an allergic child. The failure of a grandmother or an uncle to treat a child’s allergy with the required diligence can be jaw-droppingly difficult to fathom. These, after all, are people who love that child and would never intentionally hurt him or her.

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THE EXPERTS SAY that teaching the relatives may take considerable effort. The education should begin with the basics: relating that foods can have different names on ingredient labels and writing those names (such as casein for milk or albumen for egg) down for them. The concept of cross-contamination will need to be fully explained so the relatives get that picking nuts out of a cookie does not render it safe for the nut allergic, or that a knife that touched a food that may contain an allergen has to be thoroughly washed, with soap, before it’s used to cut ingredients for an allergic child’s meal.

But beyond these basics, the parent of the allergic child may encounter ignorance from relatives who think “a little bit can’t hurt” or who believe in Old World ways and perhaps home or naturopathic remedies. Deena Mandell is an associate professor of social work at Wilfrid Laurier University who counsels families struggling with chronic illness and severe allergies. She says to explain to relatives that feeding an allergic child his allergen is misguided, and a dangerous practice; “that research indicates it’s not safe, especially in a person at risk for anaphylaxis.”

Mandell, who has two food allergic sons, says some people may inaccurately compare diabetic food restrictions with food allergy limitations; since a little sugar is safe for people with diabetes, perhaps a little egg, dairy or peanut is safe for a child with food allergies. Dr. David Fischer, an allergist in Barrie, Ontario, has also seen this in his practice. “Well-meaning grandparents mistakenly think that allergen exposure will strengthen a child’s immune system, and it is sometimes necessary for me to write a letter explaining that strict avoidance of the allergen is the only current treatment.”

In some families, there is an added factor: that often-complicated dynamic between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Amy Frankel from Long Island, New York, remembers when her son was first diagnosed with peanut allergy. “My mother-in-law thought I was neurotic. She would roll her eyes when I would check ingredient labels and get huffy.” If tension already exists in this relationship, it’s usually exacerbated by a child’s food allergy.

Mandell notes that it is the mother who tends to take the children to the doctor, and do all the planning and trouble-shooting about the allergy. “If her partner is not involved, he may not be able to back her up when she’s explaining the allergy to his family, and they may take their cue from his apparent lack of concern.” To avoid this, Fischer recommends that both parents attend every allergy appointment. This allows both to hear the same information from the allergist.