For Food Allergy Awareness Week, Allergic Living’s Gwen Smith sat down with allergist Dr. Dave Stukus for a timely discussion on important food allergy topics.
They cover a range of issues: from social media misinformation to finding balance and your comfort zone when managing food allergies. On the more practical issues of allergy management, they discuss the common hesitation that people have about using epinephrine.
Stukus speaks of this as something we need to work to overcome as epinephrine “is safe, it works fast, and it’s highly effective.” But he notes that one of the complexities is the gamut of symptoms that can be involved – and sometimes mistaken for something other than a progressing reaction.
“Once anaphylaxis occurs, epinephrine treats all of those symptoms,” notes Stukus. “It reverses the effects and makes people feel better – almost immediately.”
From her perspective, Smith also attests from first-hand anaphylaxis experience how much better epinephrine can make you feel. “I always say it’s like turning off the pain tap,” she says.
Smith also gets Stukus to walk through some of the current and emergies therapies for food allergies. Speaking of some of the biologic drugs under study, Stukus says he often tells families that what’s available today is going to change in the next three to five years. “We have viable treatment options and there’s more coming down the pike. These are truly exciting times.”
Topics Covered in the Video
1:30 – Social media: using wisely, avoiding allergy misinformation
3:40 – Finding your comfort zone with restaurants, travel
5:29 – Watching out for social media that raises anxiety
6:11 – How to read anxiety-inducing allergy news
9:53 – The trap of over-testing and food over-avoidance
10:44 – Epinephrine and auto-injector hesitation
14:36 – What’s the role for antihistamines?
17:25 – Food allergy therapies current and emerging
23:07 – Takeaway messages for FAAW week
This video discussion was co-hosted by the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (@AAAAI_org) and Allergic Living. Dr. David Stukus is the Director of the Food Allergy Treatment Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Related Reading:
All About Epinephrine: What It Does in a Reaction, What if It Gets Hot, Cold
Living the College Football Dream with Food Allergy, Celiac, EoE
Could Xolair Be the First Biologic Treatment for Food Allergies?
