May Events

I have a darling friend who's son has food allergies. This next week is Food Allergies Awareness week and  Jodee wrote something to share with all of you.

Hey Everyone! May 8-14th is Food Allergy Awareness Week! Eight foods account for 90% of all food-allergic reactions. They are milk, egg, peanut, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, wheat, and soy. Approximately 12 million people in the U.S. have food allergies. That’s one in 25, or 4% of the population. Food allergies are more prevalent among young children – one in 17 under the age of 3 has food allergies. (www.foodallergy.org)

Living with food allergies is not easy but it’s something you don’t have a choice about. It’s amazing how we take so many things for granted like eating whatever we want or taking your family out to eat at any restaurant that sounds good! When you have a child with food allergies you become very good at reading the label on EVERYTHING every time you want to feed them something and you never leave the house without an epi-pen. You think twice about letting your child go to someone else’s house or even to school where you can’t monitor everything they will eat.

Watching your child have an allergic reaction is very terrifying. Symptoms range from hives and vomiting to anaphylactic shock where the air ways close off and if not treated immediately can cause death. As of now there is no cure for food allergies. Complete avoidance of allergens is the only way to keep food allergic kids safe.

Here are some great resources to answer any questions you might have about food allergies:

http://www.foodallergy.org                                                                                                     http://www.faiusa.org/

There are many support groups that have been set up to help parents of food allergic kids such as UFAN (Utah Food Allergy Network) http://www.utahfoodallergy.org/.

Click on this link to find a support group in your area http://www.foodallergy.org/section/support-groups.

Thanks for reminding us about Allergy Awareness week.  In addition, there are also several sewing related events that are going on right now that you don't want to miss.