Food Allergies For Dummies Introduction When I was about nine months old, my mother gave me a bit of peanut butter on her finger. My face immediately doubled in size. Fortunately, I grew up in a small town and the hospital was only a few minutes away. My mother, who is a pediatric nurse, took me straight to my pediatrician, who also happened to be my father. They quickly treated me and made the diagnosis based on the reaction alone. When I turned two years old, I had my second reaction. The standard practice at the time was that when you turned two, you would retry any food you had been allergic to as an infant. Bad idea, but at least I got to visit my father at work again. After that second incident, I led a charmed life. We avoided peanuts and my parents established strict rules around the house. My seven sisters and brothers followed the rules, and I managed to stay safe at home. Away from home, I avoided obvious peanut products but ate everything else — baked goods, desserts, ice cream, candy, you name it. Back then, we had little knowledge of food allergy and certainly no precautionary labels on foods. In retrospect I believe I was just lucky. I was especially lucky because prescribing and carrying epinephrine were not standard practices in those days. I had no real strategy to avoid peanuts, no action plan, no medications. And this was not because proper medical care was unavailable. In fact, I received the best of care and was actually a patient of the world’s most renowned pediatric allergist of the 1950s and ’60s — Dr. Jerome Glaser. My charmed existence was rudely interrupted by a tainted brownie in ninth grade. The cafeteria had changed the recipe after receiving a large supply of surplus peanut butter. It really was an awakening for my parents and me. I started paying more attention to what I was eating — as did the cafeteria workers in my school — and was given a vial of epinephrine and a syringe to carry around with me. A few years later, I experienced another severe reaction when I ate a sugar cookie from a bakery that must have been contaminated. I have since had three more reactions — one to spaghetti when I was in college, one to a piece of coconut cream pie, and a third to another contaminated cookie. Undoubtedly, my personal experience of living with a severe peanut allergy coupled with the fact that I was raised by medical professionals led me down the path to becoming an allergist specializing in food allergy. Currently, I personally care for over 4,000 patients with food allergies, and I have treated thousands more over the course of my career. I’m also actively and passionately involved in performing cutting-edge research to track down the root

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