Little Artai's challenge: this is his multi-allergy holiday
Cristina Porta has a multi-allergic 4-year-old son, Artai. In a month she is preparing to travel with her other 7-year-old daughter and her partner to the United Kingdom, specifically, to London. She is afraid, afraid because her son is allergic to eggs, milk, gluten, and a protein called LTP, which is found in the plant world, in the skin and shell of foods such as fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, cereals and vegetables. Traveling is a challenge for this family, but fear does not stop them because they have learned to live with it on a daily basis.
They have been preparing the trip for a year. “From the first moment you leave an Allergology consultation with a diagnosis of food allergy, improvisation is over for the rest of your days”. It is very important to have everything tied up, “although zero risk does not exist,” he acknowledges.
He took the flights with enough time to be able to notify the airline of his son's conditions. There are three types of allergic reactions: by ingestion, by inhalation or by contact. In his case, so far, Artai has no inhalation reaction.. Cristina and her family will enter the plane before the rest of the passengers, to be able to clean the seat and everything that is within the little one's reach, since by contact with food they can have an allergic reaction, and “you never know what has eaten the person who was before”. Cristina explains that planes are cleaned at night, but not between flights, and for this reason they must make sure everything is sanitized.
Artai also has severe asthma.. “I've had the apartment for nine months because I had to get one that didn't have a carpet, and that's not easy in London”. Not only that it does not have a carpet, but that it has a pharmacy and hospital nearby. In addition, Cristina checks a suitcase with only food suitable for him and checks the supermarkets that are close at hand to find out if he can find cold products free of allergens.. He has also taken out travel insurance, and not everyone is worth it: “Some do not include food allergies.”
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In social networks he vents by writing. “At 4.30 I am overwhelmed thinking about how much I have left to organize this last month. At 7:00, I reflect on last weekend's minor coughing crisis over a simple rug and what that would mean in an airplane cabin.. At 12.00, I receive an email with the medical report in English from your allergist that allows you to carry adrenaline and summarizes your allergic condition. I relax. At 3:00 p.m. I have decided to take the Thermomix with me. At 3:30 p.m. I find myself debating with Artai that it might be time to leave her comfort zone and leave without her.. At 7:00 p.m. I tell my husband how much time we are going to waste in British supermarkets checking labels. And at 8:00 p.m. while I have dinner, I propose that as long as I don't fall asleep, I will mentally review again what can escape me and how to keep everything tied up.
Cristina Porta and Artai with their family
“Taking a trip is always a matter of planning, and people with allergies require much more exhaustive planning,” says Ángel Sánchez, president of the Spanish Association of People with Food and Latex Allergies (Aeppa).. Carrying a report from the allergist is one of the essential things to be able to access the plane with the medication, and to take with you a summary of the clinical history: “If possible, it can also be in English”. Language can be one of the impediments for allergy sufferers. “It is very important that they know what gives you an allergy.”
“This has all been new to us,” says the mother. They had no background in their family and learning has been their trump card. “We found out he was allergic to milk and eggs when he was five months old.. And at 11 it was the first time we gave him cereal and he had anaphylactic shock. Nobody prepares you for it. Suddenly, I saw how my son needed a second adrenaline rush and a helicopter had to be requested.”. The mother needed psychological support: “It is the key to having the ability to normalize that it is our reality and that you can live like this and you can travel, but of course, improvisation disappears.”
“Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction that can be produced by the contact of an allergen with a patient allergic to it, be it a food, medicine, the sting of insects such as wasps and bees or latex.. Any allergen can trigger an anaphylactic reaction.. This is how David Baquero, an allergist and member of the Spanish Society of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (Seaic) explains it.. “It is very important to inform those around you, whether they are the people who accompany you on the trip or where you are staying, so that they know how to proceed in the event that something happens to you.”
Anaphylactic shock is called when there is cardiovascular involvement with a drop in blood pressure.. Many times it requires treatment with intramuscular adrenaline for the patient to recover, and medical assistance in the emergency room and observation for a while.. “By inhalation it is not usually so common, serious reactions are usually more due to ingestion”. By inhalation you can also have severe reactions such as bronchospasm (the bronchus closes) especially due to the vapor of shellfish and fish.. By contact “it is also difficult for it to reach anaphylaxis”, what usually arises is urticaria (hives, swelling of the eyelid…) and requires treatment with antihistamines and oral corticosteroids.
From the first moment you leave an Allergology consultation with a diagnosis of food allergy, improvisation is over for the rest of your days
“I will never be able to explain how impotence strikes when seeing that something as inconsequential as wheat manages to take your son on a walk to the limbo of death in a matter of minutes. understand it costs. Assume it more”, publishes the mother. Deaths from anaphylactic shock are few, but they do happen, as happened last March with a 17-year-old girl allergic to cow's milk protein. “It is very important to find out about the characteristics of the country where you are going, and to know how you can buy an adrenaline in case you need to replace it, because there are countries where getting it can be complicated and very expensive,” says Ángel Sánchez. Cristina does not consider traveling to countries where she cannot have immediate health care.
“More than 1% of the population will suffer some anaphylaxis throughout their lives,” says the allergist. “It is something very variable, having had a mild reaction today does not mean that tomorrow you cannot have an anaphylactic reaction. Not all allergy patients have anaphylaxis, but it is on the rise.”. Suffering a reaction depends on the immune response. “Any allergic reaction is potentially anaphylactic.. You know how an allergic reaction starts, but you don't know how it will end.”. Baquero explains that people with multiple allergies are more likely to have an allergic reaction simply because they react to more allergens, “but there is no pattern.”
A study carried out by the Fundación Alcorcón Hospital (Madrid) indicates that some 113 people per 100,000 inhabitants suffer anaphylaxis each year. Currently, 30% of the Spanish population has some type of allergy, and it is expected that by 2050 it will be 50%, according to the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI).. For a person to be allergic, there must be three components: a genetic component, a component from the host itself, and an environmental component.. “The environmental component seems to be causing this prevalence to increase. Contamination is a factor that we have studied extensively and that is directly related to the increase in allergic pathologies” explains Baquero.
Alba Quadrado is a young woman who is also multi-allergic, who, although she has managed to cure some of them, still cannot eat fish, shellfish, nuts or eggs, and she is also a celiac. Quadrado has suffered quite a few anaphylactic shocks: “The last time on my birthday with a cake in which they told me that there was no allergen, but it turns out that yes, that it had a mounted egg and I ended up in the hospital”. For multi-allergy people, eating away from home can be a risk: «The restaurant can tell you that nothing is going to happen, but the human factor is always there and there may be mistakes. It is also an act of faith, but it is that, or you do not live ».
He has lived in Australia for a few months and has just returned. For her, one of the first steps is to know the regulations of the countries to which she travels.. In 2014 the EU Consumer Information Regulation came into force, which has introduced changes to the information that food operators must provide to their customers, and there are 14 allergens that must be declared when used as ingredients.
I will never be able to explain how impotence strikes when seeing that something as inconsequential as wheat manages to take your son on a walk to the limbo of death in a matter of minutes.. understand it costs. take it on more
“It is not the same to go to an underdeveloped Asian country, than to go to a European country that is governed by the same legislation, or to go to Australia, which, although developed, has completely different legislation”. Knowing what is being eaten does not always depend on oneself, that is why the regulations are important to be able to recognize the ingredients. “Depending on third parties can cause you a lot of stress and make you not enjoy the trip,” he says.. The young woman says that there are many places she would like to travel to: “When I was in Australia my dream was to go to Southeast Asia, but it still gives me a lot of respect. I want to go at some point as a challenge and show myself that despite everything, it can be done.”
Upon returning from Australia, he had two flights, one of 15 hours and the other of eight. In the menu request he chose the vegan, “since they do not make menus adapted to allergy sufferers». The young woman says that there must have been an error in her request and they did not have food for her: «If it is not because I always carry food with me, I stay all these hours without eating».
Cross contamination is another disadvantage to consider.. For example, if they support an ingredient where a fish has been before, in the case of Alba Quadrado, it will cause an allergic reaction. Or if they cook with the same utensil in the same pan. Cristiana Porta explains that “with so many allergies it is very difficult to control cross contamination in a kitchen”. “We never go out to eat unless it's to the two restaurants that always cook our food in a separate frying pan, but I can tell you that we go once a year.. When we go out to eat, the child always brings his own lunch box.”
“Understanding that allergies are not only a threat present in food is one of the pending subjects in this society. Allergens are in a thousand imperceptible situations for those who are not used to living with them.” Cristina continues to reconsider whether traveling with her little one is a good idea. “It's thinking about it and millions of 'what if…' gallop in my head, but I tell myself: Do it, and if it scares you, do it with fear”. It's all for my little one: “I have to show him that he can travel.”