Food Allergies: A Game Changer

Guest Blogger: Teresa Knight

Two words that in an instant can change your life forever. Living with food allergies can be a struggle, a hardship, and exhausting. But once you know your triggers, you can learn to maneuver through life, while still enjoying most everything that you like to do.

Personally, I have a lot of allergies, including food allergies. One of the worst allergies I have is sea salt. Yup, sea salt. Many people have told me it’s not possible to have a sea salt allergy. Having ended up in the emergency room due to this allergy, I’m sure it is possible. :-)

Word to the wise: People who have a severe shellfish allergy can be at a greater risk for developing a sea salt allergy. The few studies conducted on sea salt have shown that sea salt is not as highly processed as table salt and can contain tiny traces of shellfish. Therefore, if you have a severe shellfish allergy, you may also have a reaction to sea salt. Because it’s not a well-known allergy yet, it’s important to be careful eating sea salt if you have a shellfish allergy until you know how you will react.

An important tip for people with a sea salt allergy or other food allergies to know is that food companies are not required to label foods with all ingredients. They just must list the top eight allergens - milk, egg, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts and soybeans (see the Food Allergen Labeling Consumer Act), but as for other ingredients, they do not have to list them.

One critical issue to remember is that if you have an allergy, like sea salt, research on foods and how they are processed, is crucial. If, for example, a company uses sea salt in their processing plant, all foods processed there have a chance to be cross-contaminated. As you are researching, key in on identifying how the food item is processed or grown if you have a question on whether it’s safe to eat. It’s better to be proactive then suffer a reaction.

Eating out adds a whole new layer of complications to the mix. If you are going to be going out, research ahead of time the restaurant and how they cook the food. This is essential to being safe while eating at that restaurant. I’ve found that restaurants are fine and very much used to questions on how food is processed, what they use to cook the foods with, and even where food items are bought from.

Lastly, habitually carry your epinephrine (“epi”) pen with you everywhere. The Mayo Clinic (and my own asthma doctor) now recommend that a person with food allergies should carry two epi pens with them at all times. First, because if you have a bad reaction and that the first epi pen injection doesn’t help, you will need to give yourself another injection. Second, epi pens work for 15 minutes, so in case an ambulance can’t get to you within 15 minutes, another epi pen can help save a life.

The bottom line is living with allergies can be difficult and very challenging. One of the best defenses you have is research, research, research.

Teresa Knight is a paralegal and has lived with severe allergies since she was a teenager, over 45 years in total. To successfully maneuver through all her allergies, she's leveraged her strong research skills to learn the ins and out of how to live the best possible life with severe allergies.