MTV, I'm Allergic to Everything
**UPDATED with online show link.**
MTV’s True Life series decided to cover food allergies. [Disclosure: they came to me in October last year asking if I could recommend any teens with food allergies for this show; I sent them to FAAN’s Teen program.] The show aired last night. You will be able to watch it online now.
First off, many thanks to the brave Raelyn and Zeke –these are the high schoolers MTV followed. They and their families were generous enough to allow us in to their lives, their struggles, their concerns and their hopes. Thank you again. Secondly, as a reality show, this program pulls for the extremes and they picked two atypical examples of food allergic disease: Zeke has Eosinophilic Esophagitis and Raelyn has idiopathic anahylaxis.
Eosinophilic Esophagitis or EE (or EoE) is, accrording to the University of Michigan: "a chronic disorder of the digestive system in which large numbers of a particular type of white blood cell called eosinophils are present in the esophagus. the esophagus is the tube that carries food from the mouth to the stomach. Eosinophils are an important part of the immune system and play a role in fighting infection. This condition is characterized by vomiting, stomach or chest pain, failure to thrive (particularly in children), and difficulty swallowing."
Eosinophilic Esophagitis is a serious condition that is under the rubric of allergic disease but not a classic food allergy. However, Zeke’s segments follow a relatively typical medically approved path: visits to his board certified allergist in the hospital for scratch and skin testing (and resultant reactions), food challenges in the hospital and under supervision, endoscopy and biopsy of the esophagus, and more food trails after the all clear sign. We see him being bullied and we see him struggling to have a normal life and diet but we also see him following a well-worn and safe medical path to determine how to take small safe steps forward.
Raelyn is given a diagnosis of idiopathic anaphylaxis and in the world of food allergy that is a true gray zone. Idiopathic means that no cause can be determined for anaphylactic reactions. Raelyn’s struggle with this vague diagnosis is very real, as it her anxiety and her wish to be normal. In her segments, we see Raelyn meeting with one of the best allergists in the country: Dr Robert Wood. He tells her that her immune system is going haywire, her anaphylaxis reactions are not coming from an outside source but from within and then he mentions something about her stress levels and trying to control those. (These details are from memory, so they may be faulty.) We do not see her given a clear path toward management. And without a clear answer from the western medical community, Raelyn and her family do what many desperate patients do and turn to alternative methods and practitioners who claim to have the cure.
Bottom line: Right now, there is no cure for food allergies.
What follows is a typical scene of alternative treatment. Raelyn visits a chiropractor who says he can cure her of all of her food allergies. After a month of sessions, he tells her she can reintroduce foods to her diet. She attempts food challenges at home without medical supervision that go dramatically wrong, necessitating a call to 911 and hospital visit. It was disturbing to watch and no, she is not cured.
Did the show raise awareness about food allergies and what our community's families and teens deal with on a daily basis? Will it? I don’t know.
What is clear is that these two teenagers are working valiantly to have normal lives.
My wish? I wish Raelyn would have been given a clear direction from Dr. Wood about how proceed. (As this is a highly contrived reality show, we have no idea if there was medical follow up with Dr. Wood or any other board certified medical provider.) And I wish both teenagers and their families had more support around issues of anxiety and their diagnosis.
Did you see it? Tell me what you thought.
MTV’s True Life series decided to cover food allergies. [Disclosure: they came to me in October last year asking if I could recommend any teens with food allergies for this show; I sent them to FAAN’s Teen program.] The show aired last night. You will be able to watch it online now.
First off, many thanks to the brave Raelyn and Zeke –these are the high schoolers MTV followed. They and their families were generous enough to allow us in to their lives, their struggles, their concerns and their hopes. Thank you again. Secondly, as a reality show, this program pulls for the extremes and they picked two atypical examples of food allergic disease: Zeke has Eosinophilic Esophagitis and Raelyn has idiopathic anahylaxis.
Eosinophilic Esophagitis or EE (or EoE) is, accrording to the University of Michigan: "a chronic disorder of the digestive system in which large numbers of a particular type of white blood cell called eosinophils are present in the esophagus. the esophagus is the tube that carries food from the mouth to the stomach. Eosinophils are an important part of the immune system and play a role in fighting infection. This condition is characterized by vomiting, stomach or chest pain, failure to thrive (particularly in children), and difficulty swallowing."
Eosinophilic Esophagitis is a serious condition that is under the rubric of allergic disease but not a classic food allergy. However, Zeke’s segments follow a relatively typical medically approved path: visits to his board certified allergist in the hospital for scratch and skin testing (and resultant reactions), food challenges in the hospital and under supervision, endoscopy and biopsy of the esophagus, and more food trails after the all clear sign. We see him being bullied and we see him struggling to have a normal life and diet but we also see him following a well-worn and safe medical path to determine how to take small safe steps forward.
Raelyn is given a diagnosis of idiopathic anaphylaxis and in the world of food allergy that is a true gray zone. Idiopathic means that no cause can be determined for anaphylactic reactions. Raelyn’s struggle with this vague diagnosis is very real, as it her anxiety and her wish to be normal. In her segments, we see Raelyn meeting with one of the best allergists in the country: Dr Robert Wood. He tells her that her immune system is going haywire, her anaphylaxis reactions are not coming from an outside source but from within and then he mentions something about her stress levels and trying to control those. (These details are from memory, so they may be faulty.) We do not see her given a clear path toward management. And without a clear answer from the western medical community, Raelyn and her family do what many desperate patients do and turn to alternative methods and practitioners who claim to have the cure.
Bottom line: Right now, there is no cure for food allergies.
What follows is a typical scene of alternative treatment. Raelyn visits a chiropractor who says he can cure her of all of her food allergies. After a month of sessions, he tells her she can reintroduce foods to her diet. She attempts food challenges at home without medical supervision that go dramatically wrong, necessitating a call to 911 and hospital visit. It was disturbing to watch and no, she is not cured.
Did the show raise awareness about food allergies and what our community's families and teens deal with on a daily basis? Will it? I don’t know.
What is clear is that these two teenagers are working valiantly to have normal lives.
My wish? I wish Raelyn would have been given a clear direction from Dr. Wood about how proceed. (As this is a highly contrived reality show, we have no idea if there was medical follow up with Dr. Wood or any other board certified medical provider.) And I wish both teenagers and their families had more support around issues of anxiety and their diagnosis.
Did you see it? Tell me what you thought.
Comments
Zeke is equally as valiant, playing a demanding sport, Hockey, while undergoing food challenges to see if he can add food back into his diet.
It was wonderful for my daughter to be able to see other young teens like herself who are living similar lives.
At the end of the show, I really did want to see more. I wanted to see Dr. Wood counsel Raelyn on her new approach to her health.
And of course, I want Raelyn to come and visit me so I can bake her safe foods! We always have lots of epi-pens in our house!
I wanted to reach through the screen and help them, teach them everything I know and help them be proactive and not feel that FA define who they are! For them I wish personal acceptance of their dx and learn how to keep themselves as safe as possible.
On the other hand, they are, as you note, extremes and in I way I worry that this will perpetuate the vast amounts of misinformation people have about people with food allergies.
Overall, while I applaud the effort, I don't think this helped anyone get a better understanding of what it's like for kids with just plain, not sensationalist, food allergies and I worry that it may have caused even more confusion.
My allergies had been identified by a chiropractor who used muscle testing too, in my opinion it is invaluable to quickly and inexpensively know what are your allergy triggers. I could not imagine my life not knowing what I was allergic to what I wasn't.
1. There is no cure for food allergies. Currently, there is no FDA-approved cure for food allergies. Strict avoidance of the allergy-causing food is the only way to avoid a reaction.
2. The first line of defense for treating an anaphylactic reaction is epinephrine. Epinephrine works to reverse the symptoms of anaphylaxis and helps to prevent its progression. For people diagnosed with a food allergy, it is important to always carry your epinephrine auto-injector (Adrenaclick™, EpiPen® or Twinject™). Antihistamines (such as Benadryl®) and steroids (such as prednisone) are often used to help the recovery of a person with an anaphylactic reaction. Antihistamines and asthma medications (such as albuterol) may be administered with epinephrine, but never instead of epinephrine during anaphylaxis, because they cannot reverse many of the symptoms of anaphylaxis. If you or your child has an anaphylactic reaction, it is also important to go to the emergency room.
3. Food allergies are life-altering for everyone involved and require constant vigilance. While food allergies are manageable, the constant attention to ingredients can bring worry and fear about reactions. FAAN recommends that anyone who experiences chronic anxiety about their food allergies seek treatment from a mental health professional to help ease the burden.
In “real” life and on television, food allergies should be treated responsibly. As the trusted source for information with food allergies, FAAN is here to help.
I hadn't really thought about it causing people to dismiss less severe allergy cases, but I'm sure that's true. We already battle with people not taking it seriously.