A couple weeks back, I talked about a local event held in the town of Clawson sponsoring peanut free trick-or-treating. Well, I went to the event on Saturday and it was a blast! Thank you to the city of Clawson for holding such a wonderful event, and for keeping the people with allergies in mind when planning it. I ended up bringing home a whole bunch of candy, and my sister and I had a blast! If you happen to live in the area, I would definitely recommend this wonderful event to you, whether or not you have allergies. My parents took some really cool pictures of the event, so I posted some to show.
Monthly Archives: October 2016
Halloween Candy Donations
Happy Halloween everyone! I’m so excited to do my neighborhood trick or treating night in about ten years! I don’t even remember the last time I went trick-or-treating in our subdivision, and I have to say, I’m pretty psyched. I understand that not the candy I get is going to be safe, but my mom has a plan. She’s setting up a sort of “store” in which I can trade my unsafe candy for some safe candy. Then we’ll take my unsafe candy and donate it. I am excited at the idea, and I will write all about how it went in a later post, so stay tuned!
My mom is using this really cool program called the Halloween Candy Buyback. It’s where you sell your candy to dentists, or other shop owners who are registered with the program. They pay you one dollar for each pound of candy you bring in, and then donate it to military troops overseas by partnering with the Soldiers’ Angels program. How cool is that?
To find a buyback center near you, all you have to do is go to this link…
http://www.halloweencandybuyback.com/
…and insert your zip code into the search tool and it will find people near you who have registered with the program who will buy your candy back. I think it’s a super cool program, not only for allergy kids like me, but also for those soldiers. What a great way to get rid of unsafe candy!
If you know of any other programs like this, feel free to comment. You might be featured in my next post.
Until next time!
Gary
Epinephrine Pill?
The latest development in the allergy community is the EpiPen pill. Doctors have been trying to create a pill that can transfer epinephrine to patients going through anaphylctic shock. In other words, an pill that can replace an EpiPen.
The pill would supposedly be exponentially cheaper than an EpiPen, and last much longer.
Personally, I am thrilled by the idea. I think it’s inspired. If I don’t have to lug around two EpiPens everywhere, and if my parents don’t have to spend ridiculous sums of money on auto-injectors every year–they are estimating that the epinephrine pills could last up to seven years, then I’m happy.
Doctors have been wanting to make EpiPen pills for a while, however, numerous problems arise from it. First, someone going through anaphylaxis might find it difficult to swallow a pill. Even if they could manage, it takes time for a regular pill to be absorbed by the stomach, and epinephrine can’t survive being processed in the stomach.
To bypass that problem, doctors are looking into making it an ODT, or orally disintegrating tablet. Those are those pills that you hold under your tongue and it dissolves.
I think this is absolutely fascinating, and if you do too, then I have some links on the story if you want to read more.
http://www.zmescience.com/medicine/pill-epi-63142/
Until next time!
Gary
Halloween at Greenfield Village
Hello readers!
Halloween is in twelve more days. It is one of my favorite holidays. Even an allergy kid loves candy and treats. I’m going trick-or-treating for the first time in almost ten years! I’m actually really looking forward to it. My family and I have sort of avoided traditional trick-or-treating for a while due to my allergy. Instead we have a big Halloween party every year with my whole family at my grandparents’ house. We also go to trick or treat events, like Trick or Treasure, an allergy free event in a town near us, or my favorite Halloween at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI.
I just went to the Halloween event at Greenfield Village this past weekend. It is such an amazing event. I usually give away most of the treats, but I took a picture of my little haul below–clearly you aren’t really there for the treats, but I thought you might want to see what they give out.
It is such a fun evening. As the sun sets, the village is lit up by hundreds of carved pumpkins. You follow the pumpkin path and are entertained by a a circus sideshow, a fortune teller, giant singing pumpkins, a band of pirates, and amazing actors retelling classic stories in the candlelit night. My favorite this year was a retelling of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. Watch out for the Headless Horseman as he rides across the field! It’s so much fun!
I dressed up as Harry Potter (due to reasons mentioned in an earlier post), and my little sister dressed up as Hermione. The resemblance was actually kind of scary.
Below, I posted some cool pictures from the event from those who are interested.
Feel free to comment about any fun, allergy-safe events in your local area. I might even include it in a future post!
In The News: Epipen or no?
As a part of my blog, I like to read up on current allergy events, because I believe that an important part of learning about allergies is being up to date on the events that occur. I came across this story in the news recently, and I wanted to wirte a post about it, in hopes that something like this never happens again.
About a week ago, a high school student at District 214 high school named Lia Sommers suffered an allergic reaction after eating a turkey sandwich with pesto provided to her by the school.
The Food and Nutrition Services Department had subbed out the pine nuts in the pesto, which Sommers was not allergic to, with peanuts, without alerting the students or staff of the school. According to reports, Sommers felt her throat begin to close right after taking the first bite of her sandwich.
With the help of a friend, Sommers managed to make it to the nurse’s office, where she requested to be injected with an Epipen.
Now here’s where it gets interesting.
The nurse did not give her an EpiPen. She said that instead, Sommers should take Benadryl antihistamine. Sommers, who from experience, knew that Benadryl simply masks symptoms of a reaction while it proceeds to get worse, refused. At this point, Sommers had been going through anaphylaxis for a couple minutes and the nurse still hadn’t even called 911.
When the nurse checked Sommers’s official allergy action plan and found that it said to use EpiPen first, in her allergist’s own writing, even that wasn’t enough. Instead, the nurse proceeded to call the Lia’s mother and ask what she should do even though the child was having an allergic reaction right next to her.
According to an interview with the mother after the event, the first two questions she asked the nurse were: “Did [she] administer EpiPen?” and “Did [she] call 911?” She said she was appalled to hear that the answer to both of those questions was no. Luckily, 911 was later called, and Sommers managed to pull through, but this is yet another example of how education about food allergies is super important.
If 911 got there even a couple minutes later, would Sommers have survived? It is impossible to know, but her chances would be greatly reduced due to the actions of that nurse. While she was simply trying to help to the best of her ability, this just shows that not a lot of people know the proper allergy procedure. I hope we can change that.
Until next time
Gary