The Sad Side Effect For Kids With Food Allergies

My six-year-old son is severely allergic to peanuts, a discovery we made when he was just 13 months old. We’ve managed the allergy well over the years and it’s gotten easier lately since he can now advocate for himself. "Does it have peanuts in it?" comes out of his mouth before anything new goes in. But something else has set in recently that I didn’t anticipate: Anxiety.

Alex has had two peanut-related panic attacks in the past two weeks. It is heartbreaking to witness and, as I learned, completely normal: "You never see anxiety like this in younger kids but once they get to four or five years old, they start to develop logical thinking," says Mark L. Goldstein, Ph.D., a Chicago-based clinical psychologist and author of "Chronic Disorders in Children and Adolescents." "They can put two and two together and realize there is something very scary going on.” Scary as in they can die from something they eat. 

The first episode happened in my mom’s car after I’d eaten a piece of chocolate with almonds. Alex is not allergic to almonds but he was very vocal that I shouldn’t eat any nuts around him. We talked about it for a minute, changed the subject and were driving along fine. Ten minutes later he screamed out, “Mom, I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! Mom!” He started crying and screaming and basically hyperventilating. The kid is tough as nails so it was completely out of character — and completely gut-wrenching. But I knew he hadn’t eaten any peanuts so I just calmly reassured him he was OK and guided him through a few deep breaths. I wanted to throw up, of course, but if I’ve learned one thing from my experiences with illness and with parenting, it’s this: At least one parent needs to remain calm. After a minute, he was singing along to "Counting Stars" like nothing had happened.

The other episode was in my friend’s car while she was driving Alex home from religion class. A simple discussion about a Clif bar that “may contain peanuts” sparked that one. My friend was able to calm him down in the same way I had, but when she pulled into my driveway we were both shaking. It’s hard not to be nervous wreck about this stuff. And some of that worry is good, says Scott H. Sicherer, M.D., a pediatric allergist at the renowned Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai in New York City. “You need to be vigilant to avoid eating the food and to use emergency medications if there is a reaction but too much anxiety impedes day-to-day living.” He said some parents and kids fear exposures that are really not likely to trigger a reaction (being in the same room with a person eating the food, for example). As with anything, education is key. Speaking to board certified allergists (we took Alex to Jaffe when he was two and found it incredibly helpful), reading books (I just ordered Sicherer’s "Understanding and Managing Your Child’s Food Allergies") and talking to other parents.

Still, this anxiety is not going to go away. Every eating situation poses a possible danger and as kids get older they start hearing horror stories of other kids’ fatal reactions. They also feed off of other people’s worry. “The danger for these kids is that if the parents are constantly obsessing about it, the kids learn to do the same,” says Goldstein. As with so many things in parenting, we communicate our anxiety to our kids without even realizing it. “Certainly parents need to educate their kids about the food allergy but they need to be matter of fact about it — and keep their own anxiety in check,” he says.

For our part, we need to reassure Alex that the food we give him is safe, and that his teachers and our friends are looking out for him, too. And to always, always have an EpiPen on hand just in case. “Questioning food is good but you don’t want kids to question so much that they become obsessive compulsive about it, which is an anxiety-based disorder,” says Goldstein.

You may wonder why I would eat any nuts around him if it makes him nervous and the answer is this: He is going to be surrounded by nuts his whole life and I want him to know how to navigate through that and understand that he doesn’t have to be afraid. As for surviving the panic attacks, deep breathing is the way to go. “Breathing is a particularly good method because it’s also a distraction technique,” says Goldstein. “Have them breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth as slowly as they can, and be there to talk them through it.”

In other words, just when I thought the allergy was getting easier to manage, it got a whole lot harder. And harder to swallow. In studies conducted by Sicherer and his colleagues, a reduced quality of life was found in children with food allergies — and some of that is attributed to higher anxiety. So if there are any parents out there who feel burdened by other kids’ food allergies (like this blogger) or whose kids may not be as sensitive as they should be, please note that these little kids aren’t just dealing with a life-threatening allergy, but also with the angst-inducing knowledge that they have that life-threatening allergy. Every meal, every snack, every birthday party poses a real threat to them. We all need to do our part, not only to keep them safe, but to ease their worries.