a few days ago, national jewish contacted us and asked if the wall street journal could interview us for an article on food challenges. she noticed my email said amy grebe photography, and asked if i had photos. of course i had photos. so in the article they even did a little slideshow. the actual article will be in the actual paper tomorrow, but here is the link to the online article with slideshow. anything to spread the word about false positives to allergy blood testing!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808904575025013194645130.html
(i have five more days to do an update, you know, so that it's in january. ha.)
Monday, January 25, 2010
grayson and the wall street journal
Posted by amy at 9:30 PM
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4 comments:
I've read several stories such as WSJ's about Grayson, but one thing I still don't understand:
What, if anything, is Grayson really allergic to or reactive towards?
If the eczema has gone down or been eliminated, what caused it in the first place?
If you've tried all the foods and he hasn't gotten a rash anymore, could it have been something else all along? Such as latex?
The WSJ and others seem to be turning Grayson's story into a generalization about the unreliability of allergy tests or the over-diagnosis of allergies, but they don't report on Grayson's full story.
"Doctors there suspected that his food allergies might not be causing the eczema—and that some might not be food allergies at all. After carefully supervised 'food challenges'—giving him tiny amounts and monitoring him closely for signs of a reaction—a number of foods went back in his diet. 'We came home with 12 foods he could eat,' says Amy Grebe. 'It's made so much difference in our lives.'"
Okay then, what were among the foods that Grayson could not eat anymore? Were there positively verified allergic reactions to these foods, or were there some other kinds of reactions to them?
What, if any, non-allergic conditions were diagnosed to explain Grayson's eczema?
These questions are conveniently unanswered in the article.
About me:
I suffer from non-allergic rhinitis most of the year, but it feels just like allergies sometimes, and it responds well to allergy treatments such as nasal steroid sprays. I've had multiple skin tests both in childhood and adulthood which have found no allergies to explain my symptoms.
I am also lactose-intolerant, and when this first started affecting me as a toddler, my parents were stumped when I responded worse to soy milk than to cow's milk. So I rarely drank any kind of milk when I grew up, and I got my calcium from supplements. Because of bad past experiences, I don't even like the taste or smell of milk or dairy products anymore.
Good luck to Grayson.
so funny, today at work during the baby shower that my co-workers were setting up for us, we've had a discussion about allergies and food to eat or not to eat while breast feeding and a friend of mine talked about this very article not knowing Grayson was our nephew, that was sooo hilarious !
Anonymous,
Not sure if you will get this, but I will try to answer your questions. His eczema has gone down CONSIDERABLY and we take preventive measures to keep it down. Most days you'd never know he had it. What caused it in the first place? We understand that it's genetic, it's a disease and there are tons of things that can cause it. Weather, your skin not able to absorb moisture very well, food, etc. I don't think his is food related, however, if he eats an allergen, it will cause it for sure.
Don't think so on the latex. We've never noticed a direct reaction.
With his foods, we started at square one. He had three foods when we went. Which we was still eating when cleared from the eczema so we knew those were not causing it. Depending on his blood tests and skin tests, the highest numbers and biggest skin reactions are the ones that we are not yet willing to challenge. They are high allergens and he has proven allergic via accidental contact to things like nuts, milk and wheat. We have a list of about ten things that we will not get near him. The 9 foods he passed are working out great, and there are a few others which they told us we could do food challenges to here at home, in small amounts. These were things like bananas, and things that he tested low to, yet passed other foods that had the same test results if that makes sense. Because we were able to start at square one (lots of people don't get that chance), then we will add foods back one by one so that we are not guessing like we did for two years. That was awful.
The non-allergic conditions again would be genetics (eczema runs in my family, just not as bad as his was), seasonal allergies, dry weather, etc.
I hope this answers your questions and thank you for the well wishes for Grayson!
Amy
Amy: Thanks for the comments.
I wish Grayson the best.
(Original anonymous poster.)
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