Finding the Right Doctor for Your Allergic Child
Remember when your child was first diagnosed with food allergies? Or would you rather not, since that diagnoses came just after that horrible rush to the emergency room? Or was it after an unexpected afternoon filled with Benadryl, hives and adrenaline-laced fear? Maybe it was after that first taste of peanut butter, a switch to soy baby formula, or maybe you had just "introduced" scrambled eggs? Then again, an allergic child can sail through their first birthday without food allergies and eat that one and only bite of, say, almond flavored granola bar...
Either way, you found yourself in need of a doctor (whether pediatrician or allergist) who you could trust to help construct a safe life for your allergic child. Below is an article I wrote for the Huffington Post describing my journey and some suggestions:
There is a sage expression "A mother is only happy as her least happy child." I've noticed a more recent parenting trend that goes something like, "A mother is happy in equal proportion to her confidence in her child's doctor(s)."
Many parents have a particular anxiety surrounding our children's medical care. Thanks to the Internet, doctors have fallen from the grace of the All-Knowing and thanks to our health care system many parents cannot access the kind of care they would like for their children. And then there is the dark forest of confusion here parents wander uncertain if their child's doctor qualified or perhaps the wrong fit for their family.
My first child enjoyed good health and so I never questioned her medical care. But within a few weeks of my second child's birth in 2002, my son Eden began exhibiting allergic symptoms like eczema and reflux. His first pediatrician misdiagnosed Eden's milk allergy as "Infant Acid Reflux" asserting, "This isn't a food allergy!" when we questioned it as such....
Continue reading on The Huffington Post...
What I Do Now: