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Nurse Educator at Seattle Children's Hospital

Food Allergy Initiative Northwest and Seattle Children's Hospital have been in partnership over the last several years in our Food Allergy Community Health Education Program. Part of this program funds a nurse educator, who does FREE presentations at schools, camps, day cares (anywhere, really) on food allergies. Ann Wahl, our new nurse educator, has made dozens of presentations to almost 2,000 attendees this year alone, all across Washington state. In addition to her presentation tailored to lay people she also has a presentation targeting health professionals.

We are lucky to have such a wonderful, free resource available in our state, and I want to make sure everyone is making use of it!

To schedule a no cost visit call or email Ann at (206) 884-1012 or foodallergy@seattlechildrens.org
And as always feel free to ask me (or any of the other FAI-NW board members) any questions about our nurse educator or the other initiatives we're working on. We're happy to help and grateful that our state is at the forefront of this program!

More information at http://seattlechildrens.org/foodallergy/

Thank you to our guest blogger, Wendy Heipt. You can contact her at wandeheipt@gmail.com

Thank you for a spooktacularly fun afternoon!

It was great to see so many families out today. I have not had a chance to look at our check in sheet but we definitely had 20+ adorable costumed food allergic kids and their families enjoying the festivities at Montlake Community Center today.

I must plug Montlake Community Center. When I told them we had food allergic kids coming to the event, they asked the custodian to clean the floors last night with a machine and he wiped surfaces and mirrors down really well. The only group using it before us was a karate class so we didn't have nearly as much pre-event clean up as we expected. Whew! On top of that, I am very grateful that the City of Seattle granted us a nonprofit rental fee discount (not as easy to get as one might think).

Now I must thank 3 members of the WA FEAST Board for their commitment to making this happen. Desi Tucker is responsible for the cheeky signage and flyer as well as the cool carnival games and the portable PA system and she was assisted by husband Trent and kids on loading, decorating and clean-up;, Teisha Stiles brought 6 members of her family including her artistic and helpful children (and their friend Patrick) who turned the hall into a festive space in no time and helped with the carnival games, and Tiesha whipped up the cutest homemade Wishing (fishing?) Cauldron I have ever seen; Jenny Nolan kept us all organized and oversaw a very successful craft and coloring area. My family made good on their promises to me (OK, so maybe I did a little begging and bribing!) and did a great job with their DJ Checkit Skit and my kids and I played dance music for Dina Blade's family dance which was a lot of fun.

Everyone pitched in on clean-up - THANK YOU! We were out by 4:30ish!

I am privileged to also say thank you to the WA FEAST Board for a very kind and unexpected gesture. They decided that they would like to help my 13 yo PA daughter and I attend FAAN's Teen Summit in Washington DC. We may not be able to go this year, due to jazz band commitments, but I am touched and honored and feel that I barely deserve such generosity. If we do go, I hope to bring back some first hand knowledge of how to run such an event and perhaps try to do the same thing here on the West Coast. I am humbled. Thank you.

Finally, I wanted to acknowledge the businesses who made donations to the door prize raffle. I think this is the complete list but please let me know if you took something home that isn't listed here.

Allerbling,http://www.allerbling.com - two bracelets

Allermates, http://www.allermates.com - 8 bracelets, two lunch boxes

Allergic Living, http://www.allergicliving.com - subscription

The Bugabees Friends with Food Allergy, children's book by Amy Recob, http://thebugabees.com/

Princess and the Peanut Allergy, children's book by Wendy McClure, http://www.amazon.com/Princess-Peanut-Allergy-Wendy-McClure/dp/0807566233

Sophie Safe Cooking, Cookbook by Emily Hendrix, http://www.sophiesafecooking.com

Food Allergies and Children (3) /Food Allergies and Schools (3) - Pocket Guides from the Allergy Free Table series. http://www.allergyfreetable.com/

Flourishing with food allergies, book by A. Anderson,http://www.flourishingwithfoodallergies.com/

And last but not least, the "oh so adorable that I wish I had an epipen to put in it for myself" the Epi-Puppy, http://epipuppy.com/

Now the good news for those of you who did not make it today is that we did not send all of this stuff home which means that you may have a chance to win some of it at a future FEAST event!

Be sure to check out "How to have a not-so-spooky Halloween." It was created by Thanita Clancy of Loudoun Allergy Network and is being share with WA FEAST members with her permission, thanks to the magic of the FAAN Food Allergy Support Group Advisory Commitee Facebook page.

Kelly Morgan

Washington FEAST Halloween Spook-tacular

Join us Saturday October 29
1:00-4:00 PM at the Montlake Community Center
1618 E Calhoun Street, Seattle, WA 98112

Please click for our Registration Survey and Waiver and Release for our Halloween Spooktacular! We hope you'll come! There will be carnival games starting at 1:00 PM, followed by a costume contest, a Detective DJ Check It skit, and a puppet play by Giraffe and Staff http://giraffeandstaff.com/. We will finish the day with a short hoedown style family dance. Tweens and teens will have access to the gym starting at 2:00 PM and we'll have someone organizing games for them as well, but hope we'll all gather back in the main room for the dancing. We will add a schedule of events to the website soon.

We would be very grateful if everyone who is even considering coming to please respond to a Registration Survey and print and sign a waiver form for everyone who plans to attend the event. Apologies if you have already responded on MeetUp but we would be very grateful if you could also fill out the survey. If you are not 100% sure that you will come, please register and just mention that in the comments section. ALSO, make sure you go through all three pages of the survey - the third page asks if you are willing to volunteer at the event. Also, we will have waiver forms at the event, but if it is convenient, please print and sign ahead of time and bring to the event with you.

There is a suggested donation of $5 per child but we won't turn anyone away.

HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR VOLUNTEER JOBS:

• Game station - need 7 -8 adults or tweens/teens
• Set-up - Arrive at Montlake CC at 11:15 AM
• Clean up - we'll be out of there by 5:00 PM.

NOTE: This is a great opportunity for anyone middle school or high school students who need service hours for school.

Here is the link!

http://wafeast.org/2011/10/wafeast-halloween-carnival-sat-oct-29-2011/

We hope you'll come out and join us even for a little while. Watch the website and our various social media sites for a schedule of events. The day is shaping up frighteningly well!

Food-free and latex-free fun!

Kelly Morgan on behalf of the WA FEAST Board

From WAFEAST Events

Milk Allergy Study in Babies in Seattle

Milk Allergy study in babies birth to eight months. Please visit http://www.asthmainc.org/ or contact studies@asthmainc.org

From Blogger Pictures

WAFEAST presents Halloween Carnival

Lots of food-free fun planned for Saturday October 29, 2011!
Games, prizes, contests and more!
Join us 1:00-4:00 PM at the Montlake Community Center
1618 E Calhoun Street, Seattle, WA 98112



From WAFEAST Events
Contact leader@wafeast.org

Back to school tips – Plan! Plan! Plan!

As children, we all remember having butterflies at the end of the summer as our parents prodded us to pick out lunch boxes and try on new clothes. As parents of food allergic children, we may feel those butterflies return, as we think about turning over responsibility of our children’s well being to school staff. If we aren’t careful, our anxiety can spill over and increase the butterflies that our kids are feeling as a natural part of returning to or starting school. While seeking out a therapist in anxiety management may be something to consider, much can be achieved via good planning. There are several vehicles for planning for accommodating food allergic students in the school setting, including the Individualized Health Plan (IHP) and 504 Plan, in some cases they are one in the same.
· Emergency action plan. This plan is developed in conjunction with the school nurse and is based on written prescription orders from your child’s physician. This plan describes the symptoms of anaphylaxis that your child may exhibit and instructs staff about what actions to take in the event of a food allergy emergency. If you are in a state where nurses are not allowed to delegate judgment authority to staff, you may find that the staff will be advocating that all reactions are treated with epinephrine.
· Risk reduction plan. This plan informs school staff about how to AVOID having to implement the Emergency Action Plan. The goal is to address as many plausible risky situations as possible and contingencies for unanticipated situations. The topics you might address here include what allergens are allowed in the room for parties and snacks, review any food used in class projects or science kits, assess potential risks associated with field trips,
· Inclusiveness plan. This plan addresses steps to be taken by the school and staff to avoid exclusion of your food allergic child and can layer on top of a risk reduction plan, but in some ways I think it is beneficial to think of it as a separate exercise. Many parents supply safe snacks/treats for their food allergic children. However, due to the fact that this is a “separate but equal approach,” more and more parents are requesting that all celebrations and snacks be inclusive. This can be achieved by implementing non-food rewards and celebrations and, if food is allowed, only food listed on an approved snack/party list is used.
Where to start? See if your state has food allergy guidelines in place. If not, guidelines from other states can be very useful. Finally, there are many 504 planning resources on the web. For more info, check out http://www.foodallergy.org/.
Kelly Morgan

Workplace Food Allergies Taskforce

On Saturday, August 27th at 10:30 am Christina and I will be meeting at the Bellevue Library to hash out the beginnings of a pamphlet advising workplaces on how best to handle employees with food allergies, as well as some best practices for employees with food allergies.

If you have food allergies and are in the workforce, please join us, or e-mail us what has worked (and not worked) for you. What are some challenges you've faced?
If you know of someone struggling with food allergies in the workplace, we'd love to hear from them.
Kids just entering the workplace who have questions - we'd like to know what those questions are.
Also - if you or someone you know work in Human Resources or are lawyers with experience in ADA cases, we need some expert backup as we move down the line here.

We would like to create a pamphlet (or pamphlets) that is useful to WA-FEAST, FAI, FAAN, HR departments, supervisors, and employees alike. If you know of work already done in this area, we'd love to use that too.

Thanks, Alice
www.SafeAndYummy.com

Next Mariner's peanut-controlled-zone game Thursday July 14

Hope you all had a fun and safe 4th of July! With the holiday behind us I just realized that our next Mariners game is only a week away. Go to www.mariners.com/nopeanuts to order your tickets now. Game is on Thursday, July 14th vs. Texas Rangers. It's the first game after the All-Star break.


Let's recap. Earlier in the season I said that it was true the Mariners were not very good, but we should go support them anyway. Well, heck, they have been playing much better now and are even in the race for first place. So let's really get out there and support them. Their pitching has been out of this world. Maybe we can all go and fire up their offense with our cheering.

And for our last Rainiers game I said it would be your last chance to see Dustin Ackley close up before he got called up to the Mariners. Well, they were a little more anxious than expected and Mr. Ackley got called up just prior to our Raininers game. So now is your chance to see him play in the big leagues.

And let's not kid ourselves. The weather at our first couple of games wasn't the best. But man has it been nice lately. The kids are out of school now, so come on out and enjoy a nice evening at the ballpark.

One important item of note I wanted to mention as well. My main contact with the Mariners, Bob Hellinger, has suffered a pretty serious medical issue and has been in the hospital for a while. He may not return to his work this season while he recovers. I was planning on making a get well sign to hold up at the game and thought other folks may want to do the same. We really did well with signs our first couple of games a few years back, but that has sort of died down. So let's bring that action back. Make get well signs for Bob, make thank you signs for the Mariners, and make garlic fry signs as well.

Basically, let's get out there, buy lots of tickets for our section to show our support for their efforts and then really show it during the game as well. Hope to see lots of you at the ballpark again! Have a great weekend.
Michael San Soucie

Tree Nut Allergy Research in Seattle

Benaroya Research Institute of Virginia Mason is seeking adults for food allergy research.

From Blogger Pictures

Benaroya Research Institute (BRI) is looking for severely tree nut allergic and/or peanut allergic individuals to donate their blood and answer a questionnaire about their allergy history. If you have a severe tree nut allergy, please consider helping BRI’s team of world-renowned scientists identify causes and cures for immune-mediated diseases, such as allergies.If interested, please contact the Allergy Translational Research Coordinator:

Jennifer Heaton
(206)342-6971
jheaton@benaroyaresearch.org

From Blogger Pictures

Benaroya Research Institute Receives $5.3 Million for Allergy Studies
SEATTLE, Wash. - (Feb. 18, 2008) – Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI) recently received a $5.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for William Kwok, PhD, and his team to further research allergens.
Dr. Kwok and David Robinson, MD, of the Virginia Mason Asthma and Allergy Clinic, will work together to study immune response to environmental allergens. The scientists will use tetramers to identify and study cells from individuals who are allergic to cat dander, tree and grass pollen, peanuts, mold and others.

Allergies are prevalent in many people’s lives. It is estimated that about 25 percent of the population has allergies based on positive skin test results. About 36 million Americans suffer from allergic rhinitis, 10 million Americans suffer from allergic asthma, and 2 to 4 percent of children and 1 to 2 percent of adults have food allergies.

Tetramers can specifically identify the piece of the allergen molecule (peptide) that a person reacts with. This allows for safer ways to monitor and desensitize patients to allergies. The hope is that this work can lead to an understanding of the role certain cells play in allergies. It is intended that the cells being studied can regulate immune responses that lead to allergic reaction.Currently allergy shots, given to increase people’s tolerance for a particular allergen, contain the whole allergen to reduce the symptoms of allergy. In some cases, the shots may cause life threatening symptoms such as anaphylactic shock and low blood pressure. This research work will lead to development of vaccines that use a small fragment of the allergen (peptide) which will be much safer compared to the whole allergen. It may be able to change the immune system’s tolerance for the allergy without using the actual allergen.

“The long term hope is that the peptides will be more specific with fewer side effects than giving shots with the whole allergen,” says Dr. Kwok. “We would like to develop a more individualized, specific treatment that will reduce any risks using the whole allergen.”

“This grant gives us an opportunity to make a significant difference for people who suffer from allergies and elevate their options for care – yet another great example of how we’re taking research from the bench at BRI to the bedside at Virginia Mason,” said Dr. Robinson.

Dr. Robinson continued, “From a basic science standpoint, being able to identify what the T-cell recognizes in the allergen is a fundamental step in the allergic immune response that we have not been able to define before. This will potentially allow researchers to tease apart fine details of the allergic immune response and this could lead to other treatment approaches that have not yet even been conceived.”

About Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia MasonBenaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI), founded in 1956, works to unlock the mysteries of the immune system. Its team of world-renowned scientists is focused on identifying causes and cures for devastating diseases including diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and cancer. BRI is an international leader in immune system and autoimmune disease research with a focus on translating laboratory discoveries to real-life applications.

Peanut Controlled Section @ Seattle Mariner's June 4th Game!

This weekend the Seattle Mariner's are offering another peanut controlled seating section! It is our day game for all of you with younger children. And the Mariners are playing some AWESOME baseball right now. It is also suppose to be really nice out! What more could you ask for?

So what are you waiting for? Go online right now to www.mariners.com/nopeanuts and order your tickets for this Saturday's game. It starts at 1:10pm. It should be a great day at the park vs. the Tampa Bay Rays.

Hope to see lots of you there so we can show the Mariners that it is worth all their extra time and effort they put into these events for us. They really do go out of their way. Go Mariners!

Michael San Soucie

Deadline to purchase Friday June 3rd at noon.

Seattle FAAN Walk 2011

From Seattle FAAN Walk & Kyle Dine Event

From FAAN Walk Seattle and Kyle Dine Concert

Hello Everyone,

I would to take a few moments to encourage you to sign up for this years food allergy walk in Seattle. My family and I have tons of fun attending and volunteering at the walks every year. We get to see and talk to so many fantastic people during the event. I can't even begin to tell you how special it is for our allergic child to feel accepted and welcome during the walks.
Seattle, FAAN walk 2011

Date of Walk: Saturday, August 20, 2011
Location: Warren G. Magnuson Park, 7400 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115
Check-In Begins: 9:00 a.m.
Walk Begins: 11:00 a.m.
Distance: 2 miles
Contact: Walkseattle@foodallergy.org
Restrictions: No pets, glass bottles, bikes, roller skates, or skate boards. Baby strollers and wagons are welcomed.

You can see Seattle-walk photos from the last two years at the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/WAFEAST

Signing up for the walk is easy. You can join a team that already exist, start your own team, sign up as an individual, or you can even join as a cyber-walker if unable to attend.

We hope you will participate in this years walk as a volunteer and/or a walker.
Washington FEAST - team

Tiesha

Play Ball!

2011 Peanut-controlled zone Seattle Mariner and Tacoma Rainier games!
I know the snow is just now melting away. But spring training is in full swing down in sunny Arizona. Ah, sun! That means baseball season is not far away. Actually, it is only about a month away before the first pitch. So I wanted to let you know that tickets are on sale now for both the Seattle Mariners and Tacoma Rainiers 2011 peanut controlled games.

To order Mariner tickets simply go online to www.mariners.com/nopeanuts and choose the games you want to attend. As always, tickets are only $11! That is a great deal for a Mariner game and we have four dates (5/7, 6/4, 7/14, and 8/17) to choose from including two Saturday games. One Saturday game is even a day game which is one of our most common requests.

For Tacoma Rainier tickets, please call Ryan Latham at 253-722-1041. Cheney Stadium has gone through a major remodel this off season so come out and see what is new at this wonderful old ballpark. Our first game at Cheney Stadium this season is a Sunday day game (4/17) on the opening weekend of the stadium. Be one of the first to attend a game at the newly refurbished stadium. By the way, I did say "our first game at Cheney Stadium this season.". Yes, we do have a second game with the Rainiers in 2011 which is on June 22nd. That is new. Also new at Cheney Stadium this year, they will be asking anyone who buys tickets for the peanut controlled seating area to sign a waiver. I mention that so you are not caught off guard. Tickets for the Rainiers are $9.95 and include either a hot dog, chips, and soda or a souvenir item for those with food allergies who can't eat the food option. Just let Ryan know which package you need.

I hope to have a flyer soon for the Rainiers game. Once I do I will share it with all of you so you can print it out and have your doctors and allergists hang them up in their office or advertise anywhere you can think of for this. For the Mariner games, you can simply print out the website and hang that around to help get the word out about these options for families with food allergies. See you all at the ballpark.

Play ball!

Michael San Soucie

From Peanut Controlled Zone - 2008

Valentine Candy Finds

Thank you to our guest blogger, Michele!

Here is some timely information that might be helpful for those wanting Valentine candy but have food allergy concerns.

This link includes:
Yummy Earth assorted lollipops
College Farms assorted nature pops
Surf sweets gummy bears/worms-PCC/Whole foods
Glee Gum-Whole foods
Enjoy Life Chocolate bars and chips

Amanda's Own dairy free/nut free chocolates-online has more delicious chocolate for those with several food allergies.

Click here for a link to Valentine's candies free of the TOP 8 allergens (milk, egg, peanut, tree-nut, shellfish, soy, wheat, fish). In addition to being available on-line, some are at PCC and Whole Foods.

This link has candy in general (not just holiday) that is free of the TOP 8 allergens. There is quite a bit. Candy heaven for any child. This website is a great reference for finding candy that at least NATURAL and some of it is socially responsible. Free of artificial dyes and high fructose corn syrup can also make it guilt free in feeding it to your child. Calorie free? uh, no. ;-)

Cheers,
Michele
Mother of child who is allergic to wheat, egg, dairy, nuts, tree nuts, peanuts, and shellfish

This is posted only for your information. As with other information on the Internet, please research to verify if these products meet your individual needs. WA-FEAST takes no responsibility for the claims of the companies listed in these links.