Allergic Girl Family Guide to Food Allergies by Sloane Miller

Author:Sloane Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Published: 2011-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

It’s natural for a family member with a difference, such as a medical diagnosis, to be singled out. With family members you see less often or are less close to, there can be more confusion, cluelessness, and misapprehension of crucial details. There may be provocative, impolite, and unsympathetic comments made about your dietary needs. Families can be insensitive, and they can be oblivious to the psychological damage that a seemingly innocent question can incur. How to manage insensitive statements takes practice, but it is possible to move past the verbal jabs and punches and access the love that your family offers.

Support Yourself as You Support Your Family

It’s a big task, I know: helping them, helping yourself, helping them to help you. This is another reason it’s vital that you have clarity about your diagnosis, how to treat it, and what to do in an emergency. Go back and read the first section of the book for more support. If you feel in need of even more assistance—and that would be very natural—go to your board-certified allergist or internist for a chat, hire a food-allergy coach, join a support group or create one, go to an online forum, and read food-allergy blogs, magazines, and books. At the very least, reach out and work through your food-allergy diagnosis so you can help your family to accept this part of you.

Mike and Celiac Disease

You may be surprised how deep your family’s relationship to food is and how unwilling they are to give up certain foods so you can be safe when you’re with them. As Grace Adler from TV’s Will & Grace said, “Jews and chicken . . . it’s real and it’s deep.” Truer words were rarely spoken. Let’s look at how coaching client Mike handled his medical diagnosis and his new life with dietary restrictions.

Mike is twenty-four years old. A recent college graduate, he’s living at home in upstate New York while working as an information technology engineer for a large corporation. He sought coaching to help him cope with his medical diagnosis. After a visit to a knowledgeable gastroenterologist and several tests, he uncovered the medical reason for years of unexplained stomach problems: celiac disease.

Celiac disease is not a food allergy; it is a genetic autoimmune disease in which gluten cannot be ingested (gluten is the protein found in wheat, barley, and rye). Exposure to gluten can incur severe discomfort in the short run and serious autoimmune system complications in the long run. The only cure for celiac disease is a strictly restricted diet: no gluten in any form. When Mike consumes gluten, he becomes gassy, is uncomfortably bloated, and has diarrhea for three days. He has spent much of his life running to the bathroom, feeling awkward in social situations and being generally unwell most of the time.

Mike is from a large Italian American family. After his celiac disease diagnosis, his five siblings and his parents were tested, too, because celiac disease is genetic. Two of Mike’s younger siblings have the disease but are asymptomatic; his mother doesn’t have it, but his father does.

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