Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- Denise Lomelino was cooking in her kitchen, enjoying an aromatic cup of chamomile tea, when her throat closed up.

The parent of a child with so many allergies she needs a worksheet to remember them all, Lomelino thought she was having a reaction to one of her daughter's foods. As she stumbled through the house gasping for breath, her mind reeling, she wondered if carob powder would be the death of her.

After the longest few minutes of her life, the reaction passed. Lomelino made an appointment with an allergist. Turns out it wasn't carob; her beloved chamomile was the villain.

Now she carries an EpiPen -- a single injectable adult-size dose of epinephrine, a drug to treat anaphylactic shock. Her 5-year-old daughter has a child-size one in a "go bag" she carries everywhere. Because the girl has so many allergies, from food to environmental to animal, the kit also contains safe snacks, medications and an emergency list.

EIGHT MOST COMMON

About 12 million Americans, 3 million of them children, have food allergies, according to the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, a nonprofit dedicated to awareness and information on the topic. One in 17 under age 3 is diagnosed with a food allergy. Eight foods have been identified as causing the majority of these allergies, with cow's milk being the most common.

The others are eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, fish and shellfish.

For Lomelino, her daughter's diagnoses prompted an intense rearranging of the family pantry. She spent thousands of hours creating new recipes and buying ingredients online -- like quinoa, flax seed and amaranth -- because they weren't available locally four years ago.

Although Lomelino tapped into a wealth of virtual information, she found local support sadly lacking. Her family's social life suffered.

"Allergies are difficult because friends and families don't realize how serious they can be," she said. "They think it's like hay fever."

Last year, she started the Parents of Food Allergic Children, the only educational support group of its kind in the state. It meets monthly at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. Four people showed up at the first meeting. Today, Lomelino said, there are 50 members, with more joining all the time.

At a recent meeting, mothers carried thick white binders containing all the information for their allergic children -- their lists of danger foods and ingredients, recipes for safe foods, what to do in case of an emergency and shots of epinephrine.

The binders are for caregivers, grandparents and fathers.

The women describe feelings of isolation from their peers and panic at the thought of losing their child. One young mother, whose year-old child was just diagnosed with several allergies, fought off tears as she described her emotions.

This group knows that, short of sealing a child in a bubble, it's impossible to prevent cross-contamination all the time in the real world.

"(The pressure) builds up so much during the month and I feel overwhelmed, like I can't do this," said Dawn Coyne, whose child has a corn allergy.

"I feel relieved when I come here."

"When I come here, I don't feel like I'm an over-reactive mom," added Shannon Connelly.

INTERNAL THREAT

Her 4-year-old son, Will, gets hives all over his body when exposed to pineapple or latex.

Shannon took pictures after allergy testing of large swaths of red, irritated skin that look as if it's been bitten by a cloud of mosquitoes.

Scary as it looks, Will's reaction is considered mild, Dr. Melinda Rathkopf said. It's not life-threatening and it goes away if untreated.

Rathkopf is an allergist with the Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Center of Alaska in Anchorage and the medical advisor for Parents of Food Allergic Children.

Most serious are life-threatening anaphylactic responses like Lomelino's reaction to chamomile.

Newly recognized symptoms of food allergies include chronic rashes and gastro-intestinal reactions, where exposure to the allergenic foods leads to chronic inflammation in the gut, Rathkopf said. That means diarrhea, vomiting, reflux and constipation. Research is still being done to narrow the cause and the relief.

Whatever the cause or reaction, "allergic reactions are on the rise," Rathkopf said.

And it's Lomelino's mission to make sure parents know how to handle whatever nature throws at them.

"I'll meet one-on-one to work with them," Lomelino said. "I don't want people to feel they're alone."

Find Melodie Wright at adn.com/contact/mwright or 352-6721.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Parents of Food Allergic Children will meet again from 9:30-11 a.m. Aug. 2 in the Matanuska room of Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, 2500 S. Woodworth Loop, Palmer. For information, e-mail aafafood@gci.net. • You can't be allergic to that. Specific allergies aren't inherited but the tendency to have allergies is, said Dr. Melinda Rathkopf, an allergist with the Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Center of Alaska. So if a parent is allergic to wheat, the child may have asthma.

• One little bit won't hurt. In a true food allergy, even a microscopic quantity can trigger an anaphylactic reaction.

• Kids will outgrow it. Allergies to wheat, egg, milk and soy tend to be outgrown. But allergies to peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish are generally lifelong.

• Goat milk is the best replacement for a cow's milk allergy. Ninety-five percent of children with an anaphylactic reaction to cow's milk will react to goat's milk.

• There are more allergies now because we live in an unnaturally clean environment. The hygiene hypothesis theorizes that our immune systems are going amok because they have nothing to do. Rathkopf said Scandinavian studies of children with older siblings or who live among farm animals have few allergies. In other words, a lot of dirt doesn't hurt.

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