Please...your best food allergy resources?

[Rebecca in GA]

I know there are many of you out there who are battling food allergies and I hoped you could help me out by giving me book titles, websites, blog addresses or any other resources that may help us.

Between the three of our children, we have to avoid:

Peanuts
Rice
Shrimp
Tomatoes
Beef
Chicken
Fish
Tree nuts
Oranges
Corn
Egg
Cow's milk
Soy
Wheat

I am in a panic, as you can imagine, so I would truly appreciate any guidance. This is all new to us.

[one l michele]

http://www.foodallergy.org/ is the best IMO.

I just found this one and want to take some time to read over it.
http://www.allergy-clinic.co.uk/food_allergy_for_public.htm

[Alice]

The Food Allergy Network is the best I know...it's www.foodallergy.org. It's a good website plus you can "join" and they will send you e-mail updates/newsletters/alerts, etc.

[one l michele]

I just wanted to add there is OFTEN false positives, my oldest at age 2 after having an anaphylactic reaction to egg, was tested for 35 food items and came back positive to 27 of them. He went through the whole oral challenge bit, it was a long and frustrating process. Focus on what you CAN feed them and that they will eat for now and take baby steps.

[Emily in FL]

The BabyCenter Food Allergy board (http://boards.babycenter.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=bcus9266)is very active and contains a lot of helpful information.

Kids with Food Allergies (http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org/)has a great message board. You can read the main board by joining for free, but can't post unless you pay a membership fee. There is a great recipe section there for paying members.

Allergy Grocer (http://www.allergygrocer.com/) is a good source for allergy friendly foods. You can search by the foods you are avoiding.

Allerjenn (http://www.allerjenn.com/index.php) is a website for allergy friendly recipes. Again you can search by the foods you are avoiding.

Allergies, Intolerances, and Food (http://http://babyandkidallergies.com/index.php)has lists for several different allergies on what to look for when reading ingredient lists.

I know it is overwhelming. Take a moment and breathe. Make lists of what they can eat. I made an allergy notebook that contained the lists of ingredients we needed to avoid. Any other information I found helpful also went into that notebook. I also made a binder specifically for allergy friendly recipes.

HTH!

[Rebecca in GA]

Thanks so much, y'all!

I made a little progress today in our local market, which carries some things we can immediately substitute. We've not had any significant reactions so we've got a little wiggle room. Emily, thanks for the message board links and the notebook idea! :)