• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

Michelle's blog

Food allergy and food intolerance, freefrom foods, electrosensitivity, this and that...

  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • FreeFrom Food Awards
  • Foods Matter
  • Walks & Gardens
  • Salon Music
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • FreeFrom Food Awards
  • Foods Matter
  • Walks & Gardens
  • Salon Music

The Reluctant Allergy Expert

06/08/2020 //  by Michelle Berridale Johnson//  Leave a Comment

If anyone knows about food allergy and anaphylaxis it is our good friend Ruth Holroyd, she of the What Allergy? blog and long time judge at both the FreeFrom Food Awards and the FreeFrom Skincare Awards.

Ruth says that she has now lost count of how many times she has had anaphylactic reactions but on over 30 occasions she has been close to or actually has administered adrenaline, on 10 occasions she has been hospitalised and in the last couple of years she has had two near death experiences.

But, while she has refused to let her allergies win Ruth’s determination to live a full and busy life despite them has come at a cost. Not just a practical cost in terms of the hours that she has to spend planning every outing, scrutininsing labels when she shops and emailing and phoning restaurants and cafés if she wants to eat out. But a psychological cost – an aspect of food allergy that has been largely overlooked till now. Living with the constant awareness that the sandwich you eat for lunch could kill you – or could kill your child if you are an allergy parent – is deeply stressful and scary and can make living successfully with serious allergies extremely challenging.

It was Ruth’s second near death experience in two years that finally showed her that, although she might be able to cope with the practicalities, she could no longer cope with the mental health fallout of living at death’s door. A series of apparently unrelated panic attacks prompted her first to seek psychological help – and then to write this book.

So while the book is most definitely a practical guide to living a full and active life with life threatening allergies, it is also a guide to recognising  how such a life can impact on your mental health and how to manage that secondary but equally disabling challenge.

The book

The introduction to the book is, effectively, Ruth’s story – from her childhood in the 1970s when allergy was all but unknown through to her most recent near death experience. Yet again, despite discussion with the kitchen and constant reassurance that the dish she was being given was milk free, it was not. And yet again, only the prompt actions of her friends in getting emergency help, saved her life.

From then on in, it is all practical – a primer on how to live with life threatening allergies.

Understanding your allergy and what you should do about it

  • Understanding how serious the condition is but keeping it in perspective – you are more likely to be murdered than to die from anaphylactic shock.
  • How to recognise that you are having an attack.
  • What to do if you are.
  • How to get a diagnosis.
  • How to minimise the risk of having a reaction and how to minimise the severity of that reaction.
  • Making and managing an ‘action plan’.
  • Using adrenaline injectors.

Living with severe allergies and anaphylaxis

  • Shopping and cooking.
  • To ban – or not to ban – allergens in your home.
  • Surviving at work.
  • Dealing with bullying.
  • Eating out and holidaying.
  • Dating.
  • Managing family and friends.

The psychological impact of living with anaphylaxis

  • Recognising the psychological effect that living with anaphylaxis can have on both you and your family – or your child if you are dealing with a child with severe allergies.
  • Getting help – where to ask for help and what kind of help may work for you.
  • Ruth’s own journey through therapy – what worked and what didn’t work for her.
  • Contributions from two psychologists working in the area of food allergy, looking at how it can impact on the individual’s quality of life and how best to manage the anxiety that comes with an anaphylaxis potential.

Resources and contributors

  • Self help and support groups.
  • Books, cookbooks, podcasts, blogs, apps.
  • Research, scientific papers.
  • Contributors – not only the psychologists but contributions from other allergy experts and allergy sufferers.

An essential guide for anyone attempting to come to terms with – and live positively with – life threatening allergies. As one reviewer said on Amazon:

This is a absolutely brilliant and practical guide to dealing with the many aspects of allergy suffering. Honestly written with humour and care, this book is beautifully set out making it an easy and useful book to read and navigate!

The Reluctant Allergy Expert is available both as an e-book (£6.99) and a print book (£10.50) from Amazon here.

Addendum.

I had scarcely posted this blog when I saw a post from Ruth on WhatAllergy? about the inquest into the death of a 14 year old boy who had gone into anaphylactic attack after eating popcorn in the cinema. As she points out – so many things were done wrong– not with any malign intent but out of sheer ignorance. So many things – and if only one had been done right, he might have survived.

Which is why books such as Ruth’s are SO important….. Only you can keep yourself safe – so learn how to do so.

Category: Allergies, Blogging/social media, Dairy-free, Food, FreeFrom Awards, FreeFrom Food, Gluten-free, Mental Health, Peanut allergyTag: adrenaline reverses symptoms of anaphylaxis, Allergy bullying, living with anaphylaxis, psychological effects of anaphylaxis, risk of death from anaphylaxis, Ruth at What Allergy?, Ruth Holroyd, What allergy?

Previous Post: « FreeFrom Skincare Awards flow smoothly to presentation day
Next Post: You, Me and Food Allergies »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • FreeFrom Food Awards judging in times of COVID
  • FAB Research – blindness in pre term babies
  • #Speak Up for Allergies
  • Novel food proteins – do they pose a risk to food allergics?
  • The dairy wars

Search this blog

ARCHIVES

Blogroll

  • Allergy Insight
  • Better brains, naturally
  • For Ever FreeFrom
  • Free From (gluten)
  • Freefrom Food Awards
  • Gluten-free Mrs D
  • Natural Health Worldwide
  • Pure Health Clinic
  • Skins Matter
  • The Helminthic Therapy Wiki
  • Truly Gluten Free
  • What Allergy?

TOPICS

The dairy wars

An excellent recent post on Alex Gazzola’s AllergyInsight blog covers several subjects (including a recent Anaphylaxis Campaign webinar on novel proteins on which more anon) but homes in on the current battle between the vegan and dairy lobbies, both claiming the moral high grand in the environmental debate. The truth is, of course, that if …

In memory of Pat Schooling

It is with great sadness that I have to report the death on January 20th of Pat Schooling, the Director and moving spirit behind Action Against Allergy.  She was 93. AAA, founded by Amelia Nathan Hill in 1978, was the first charity to be set up to support those with undiagnosed food allergy and intolerance. …

FSA – on the allergy case

You might well have thought that COVID concerns had taken over all branches of government activity – but not so. The Foods Standards Agency, while noting the issues, has refused to be distracted from its Food Hypersensitivity work. What is also good to realise – although I suspect that few do – is that all …

Homeopathy – a second string to our vaccination bow?

Cuba has always had a very individualistic– and on the whole very successful – approach to public and population health. The hard line socialist nature of their politics, especially in early days after the revolution, resulted in very high levels of education and medical care – but also in isolation from much of the developed …

Sad, sad news

Yesterday evening, Lisa Acton – co founder, with her husband John Burke, of the Irish FreeFrom Food Awards – finally lost a long and heroic battle with cancer. To my regret I had only met her a few times. A couple of years ago when John brought the whole family to a FreeFrom Food Awards …

Are COVID vaccines safe for those with allergies?

Allergy reactors are, understandably, worried as to whether they should accept a vaccination if and when it is offered. After consultation with the BSACI (British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology) the MHRA (Medicines  and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) have updated their original warning that those with allergies to vaccines, drugs and food should not …

Site Footer

Signup for the latest news from the blog

Regular updates on Food – policy, allergy, intolerance – and other unrelated matters…

Thank you!

You have successfully joined our subscriber list.

.

Copyright © 2021 · Michelle's Blog · Michelle Berridale Johnson · Site design by DigitalJen·