2009 Food Allergy Awareness Walk

It's time again for the annual Food Allergy Awareness Walk! This is our yearly fundraiser so that FAAW can continue to help families with food allergies. If you are unable to attend but would still like to donate to the event you can visit Brody's fundraising web page http://www.firstgiving.com/brodysteam and donate.

Walk for Children, Teens, and Adults with Food Allergies
Saturday, August 8, 2009
9:00 A.M. Registration
Warner Park
2930 N Sherman Ave
Madison, WI

Join Us & Walk For A Child, Teen or Adult With Allergies!

Build Your Team or Register!

Six Easy Steps:
1. Go to www.firstgiving.com/foodallergywis
2. Click on "Register for an Event"
3. Select "Food Allergy Walk"
4. Select your registration type.
5. Log in or create an account.
6. Find a team to join or create a new team.

Or Contact:
Food Allergy Association of WI
2722 Union Street
Madison, WI 53704
Phone: 608-575-9535
E-mail: sheree@foodallergywis.org
Fax your registration and credit card information to:608-249-5215

Let your creativity run wild!
Create a t-shirt with your child's picture or show your allergies with signs, posters, and team shirts.

Create a Fundraising Page!

Build your own online fundraising web page at www.firstgiving.com/foodallergywis
Send your friends, family members, and co-workers messages asking them to support your own fundraising efforts. Ask your company if they have a program to match your donation.

***************See you at the walk!***************

Needle-Free Epinephrine Autoinjector

LONDON, 1st July 2009-- "The Medical House PLC (“TMH”), (AIM:MLH) the specialist drug delivery company, announces that it has now supplied Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, with an advanced needle-free jet injector system specifically designed and manufactured to their specification. The system, known as “cool.click?” incorporates a number of features not previously associated with needle-free devices, such as an innovative dose display. In addition, an enhanced security system allows for safe injection while the level of noise associated with the injection has been minimised..."

"In October 2008 TMH announced a non-exclusive development, licence and supply agreement with Catalent Pharma Solutions and Stallergenes to develop and distribute a variation of the company’s core disposable autoinjector technology for use with epinephrine. Under the terms of this agreement, TMH will customise its proprietary, patented ASITM disposable autoinjector device technology, according to an agreed specification and will be combined with epinephrine supplied by Catalent to create epinephrine autoinjectors for both adult and paediatric use.

These epinephrine autoinjectors are intended for the emergency treatment of anaphylactic shock, mostly due to hymenoptera venom or food allergies and for the use by patients themselves or by a person close to the patient in the event of an emergency. The newly-created product will be distributed exclusively by Stallergenes who are a European biopharmaceutical company, with annual sales in 2007 of ?? million, dedicated to desensitisation therapies for the prevention and treatment of allergy-related conditions. The Agreement covers 13 European countries, including the United Kingdom and incorporates provision for extension to additional territories."

Read entire article here... http://www.pharmalive.com/News/index.cfm?articleid=637156&categoryid=54

Thrill Rides at the Theme Park

Earlier this week my family took a little mini-vacation to Illinois. We enjoyed one day at the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago (where the boys thoroughly enjoyed The Harry Potter exhibit!) and the entire next day was spent at Six Flags Great America. Other than a possible mild reaction to what I believe might have been food residue on the rides, which resulted in one large angry hive on Brody's cheek that lasted most of the day, we had a wonderful fun-filled time!

Although no outside food is allowed in the park, if you mention to the park attendants when you are entering that you have a child with special dietary needs, they will okay it. I was also told that all of the restaurants in the park have a book listing all ingredients and food allergy info. Also, because of the boys' Ocular Albinism, I stopped in at Guest Relations right inside the entrance and asked if there would be any accommodations they could offer us as the boys are extremely photophobic (their eyes are very sensitive to bright light/sunlight) and I explained that it would be hard for them to stand in long lines in the sun for extended periods of time. The person behind the desk was very understanding and gave us a Ride Accessibility Pass (RAP) which allowed us to set up a time to get on each ride without having to stand in line. Instead, we could wait elsewhere out of the sun and then enter the ride through the exit and get on almost immediately. We actually only ended up needing to use this pass a handful of times though since we were at the park on a Monday and the lines were not terribly long to begin with.

All in all, we had a great time and the boys are already planning a return visit next summer!

Video of Allergic Reaction to Peanuts

This is a very disturbing video of a man having a severe allergic reaction to peanuts. He decided to record himself during this reaction in hopes of informing people what a reaction can look like, however, this could have ended very badly for him and I certainly hope that anyone else having a reaction like this would use an EpiPen and call 911 immediately!

I'm also bothered by the fact that he states in the video that this would be considered a "mild reaction". According to the Anaphylaxis Grading Chart , this reaction would absolutely be considered anaphylaxis. Luckily this man recovered and now we can use his video as a teaching tool for ourselves and others.

Maybe, Possibly, Hopefully???

Last week Brody had an appointment for his yearly food allergy testing. I've been very hopeful that he will eventually outgrow his egg allergy, and according to the results from this year's RAST, it looks like that may indeed be happening! In fact the allergist believes that in another year or two we may be able to do an in-office food challenge! Whoo-Hoo!!

Unfortuantely his milk score is still >100...and always has been. I personally don't believe he will ever outgrow this allergy. It's just pure poison to his little body. Such a hard one to deal with considering just walking into a grocery store means that over 75% of everything on the shelves contains some form of milk or could be cross-contaminated with milk (not to mention all of his other allergies), but for now I'm choosing to focus on the good news of possibly outgrowing egg! Can you imagine my excitement of possibly some day making a cake with eggs again?!!!!

We didn't bother re-testing tree nuts or shellfish this year, but oddly enough, Brody's peanut score dropped quite a bit. I'm in no way getting myself excited about that one because A) the number is still high, and B) only 20% of children outgrow peanut allergy by school age...and Brody is already 9. (How can he already be 9?!) If I could choose, I would much rather he outgrow milk than peanut any day! At this point though, I doubt either will happen.

I just have to keep reminding myself to focus on the positive, focus on the positive, focus on the positive...

Swine Flu Vaccine Safe for Egg Allergy

Novartis is making an H1N1 vaccine in cells that should be safe for the egg allergic according to the following article.

"...the cell-based method "eliminates the rare but vexing problem of egg allergy" that means some people can't take a flu vaccine."

http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/SwineFlu/14684

Talent Show Ninja

Watch the Ninja Boy in action! Brody participated in the school talent show today. He was a nervous wreck this morning, but cool as a cucumber by the time the show started. I volunteered to be the backstage manager, so unfortunately didn't get to actually see much of his performance until watching the video afterwards.

By the way, my darling husband did not realize that if you turn the digital camera vertical while recording video, it will show up sideways when you play it back. So if you get a kink in your neck, it's Shane's fault!! Brody on the other hand, thinks it looks like he is doing karate on a wall...kind of like Spider-Man! LOL Anyone know how to rotate a video?