In the Fall issue of Allergic Living, we turned to three allergy advocates and moms to help navigate the world of the kid’s birthday party. Gina Clowes, a Certified Life Coach and founder of AllergyMoms.com; Beatrice Povolo the director of marketing and communications for Anaphylaxis Canada and Susan Clemens, the moderator of AllergicLiving.com’s Forum and [...]

Do you sometimes feel sick to your stomach not long after eating? Have you noticed a pattern in the types of food you eat when this occurs? Perhaps you have experienced unexplained skin rashes (known as hives) or vomiting or diarrhea? Does your child refuse to eat a certain food, or complain that it makes [...]

If a serious allergic reaction has left you too frightened to eat even ‘safe’ foods, there is help and you are not alone. IT WASN’T until Sandra Schwartz was on a camping trip in Northern Ontario in August 2005 that she felt the full force of the fear. Just a couple of days earlier, the [...]

It was a week so harrowing that Michelle Wilson can have trouble remembering which child reacted first. For the 29-year-old mother from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, the anxiety began on the first birthday for younger daughter Paige. The family was celebrating over ice cream when the child’s head began to swell. “It was scary,” Wilson says. [...]

Mustard has joined the ranks of the peanut, tree nut, shellfish and others and is now considered a priority allergen in Canada. Health Canada announced last week that it is amending its new and pending food allergen labeling regulations to include mustard on the list of foods that must be declared in plain language, and [...]

A newly designed EpiPen launched in pharmacies across Canada in April. The popular epinephrine auto-injector has been given a makeover to make it extremely user-friendly. The new EpiPen features larger, easy-to-read instructions and bright colours to differentiate the safety release and the needle tip. The latter also clearly states: “needle end”. The auto-injector also has [...]

The failure to recognize anaphylaxis episodes when they occur is becoming an increasingly important issue as these life-threatening reactions become more common, says Dr. Estelle Simons. “There’s this paradox. Despite anaphylaxis becoming more common, it is under recognized,” Simons explained to Allergic Living, following a speech at the annual conference of the Canadian Society of Allergy [...]