Book Review: "How to Manage Your Child's Life-Threatening Food Allergies"

Finding out your child has a life-threatening food allergy is devastating. But, what can be even more frightening is being sent home from a doctor's office with this knowledge with little or no information on how to manage it.

Linda Coss was that mom in 1991. Instead of accepting a lack of understanding of her son Jason's multiple life-threatening food allergies, she wrote a book to help the rest of us navigate the scary world that food becomes after diagnosis.

After reading "How To Manage Your Child's Life-Threatening Food Allergy," if I were an allergist, I would hand it out to all patients who were diagnosed this condition. If insurance wouldn't cover it, I would take it out of my pocket. It's just that good and is written on a level that even a newbie on this journey comes away feeling very educated.

It includes an in-depth on the the following issues : handling severe reactions, teaching others about your child's allergy, cooking, shopping, parenting, socializing inside and outside of the home, eating out, traveling, school (including preschool, daycare, and extracurricular activities), and support groups.

I will admit that, even though I have been living with PA for 2.5 years, I learned a lot from this book. There is never an end to what you can learn about food allergies. So, if you are like me, and know a fair about food allergies but are always open to learning more, this book is great. She is a mom like myself that tries to think through every aspect where her child could encounter a dangerous situation and offers a reasonable solution.

This book is great if you are dealing with multiple food allergies, as well. The author's son is allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, and eventually outgrew a milk allergy. Egg and particularly milk allergies present unique challenges that our family knows first hand since Tyler outgrew these early this year. When you are dodging so many things, sometimes it feels like your child only eat a couple of things. She offers many fun and unique ideas to add variety to your child's diet.

Since peanuts (and tree nuts) are the scariest (or at least that is how I felt when I dealt with multiple food allergies), this book is excellent to help you manage your child's food allergies. If you are new to PA, you simply have to read this book. Not only will it educate you now, it will be a great reference for later, as well as a good resource to give to others who want to fully understand your child's peanut allergy.

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