Day two of Food Allergy Awareness Week is here.  So, what does this mean to us?  As a food allergy community, nationwide, we’ve committed to educating others with the goal of raising food allergy awareness this week.  I believe that life threatening allergies (food, insect bites and latex) is a tough disease to address since it’s invisible and most folks are managing well.  This makes this disease terribly easy for others to dismiss.  My children look normal, participate in typical youth activities, self carry epinephrine auto-injectors and bring their own food and don’t require much attention.  Unlike a visible disease that can be seen and immediately reacted to, sufferers seem fine.  This is what bothers me:  it can be very difficult to educate others that my child’s disease is deadly and serious since they look fabulous and are enjoying a good life.  This is my goal this week: to share with others that food allergies are serious – visible or invisible.  I simply want others to ask more about the disease and start the discussion.

Life Threatening Food Allergies are almost ghost like..unseen to the naked eye

Therefore, I’m using several resources this week to help me reach my goal of educating others about life threatening food allergies during Food Allergy Awareness Week:

• The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Connection Team (FAACT) website and facebook page is full of great ideas and suggested daily posts to help others learn more.
• Allergy Home offers interesting posters that you can download for free and share!
• Kids With Food Allergies has “15 Ways to Get Involved for Food Allergy Awareness Week” amongst other awareness tools.
• Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) has declared the entire month of May Food Allergy Action Month!  I’ll post more about this later this week, but until then, check out their ideas for educating others during Food Allergy Awareness Week.

There is plenty of time to participate in Food Allergy Awareness Week–what will you do this week?