Managing Food Allergies: An Ongoing Process

Food Allergies Patient Management

Making the correct diagnosis is the start of helping patients manage their food allergies. A detailed clinical history, findings from allergen specific tests and possible food challenges are important in food allergy diagnosis and appropriate testing will help determine a patient’s individual sensitization pattern. This level of specificity is important in order to tailor a comprehensive food allergy management plan for your patient.

Because there is currently no cure for food allergies, management begins with dietary avoidance of relevant food allergens. Antihistamines may be needed to manage non-severe symptoms.¹ Over time, periodic testing will likely be needed to monitor specific IgE levels, ongoing symptoms and identify additional food allergens, or, to assess the possibility of an allergy that has been outgrown.²

Well established clinical guidelines can further assist in developing a management plan that can help patients avoid symptoms and improve their quality of life.

EU Guidelines:
European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology >
UK Guidelines:
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence >

Patient Education: Learning to Live with Food Allergies

Patients may be overwhelmed when presented with a food allergy diagnosis. Food allergy has the potential to have a disruptive impact on quality of life not just for patients, but caregivers as well. The education and support you can provide has the ability, to help them avoid reactions and reduce the stress associated with diagnosis.² Food allergies have the potential to affect the entire family, as 60% of caregivers reported that a food allergy significantly affected meal preparation, while 49% reported FA affected social activities.²

To help patients and caregivers learn how to cope with food allergies, educate them on the following:

How to avoid allergens in everyday life

How to correctly interpret food labels and ingredient lists, including those that “may contain trace amounts of allergen”

The proper use of epinephrine in the event of life-threatening anaphylaxis²

Sufficient knowledge and skills related to the management of food allergies may improve patient quality of life, and has the potential to diminish anxiety related to the possibility of anaphylaxis.²

While avoiding the food allergen is the foundation for a management plan, it is critical that you make your patients aware of the proper protocol in the case of a severe reaction to food.

Additionally, it is recommended that patients, especially children and their caregivers, receive nutritional guidance and monitoring to avoid nutritional deficiencies.²

The steps are the same for those who are at risk and for those who have a history of anaphylactic reactions.¹

Stop the exposure to or contact with the allergen
Administer an intramuscular (IM) injection of epinephrine. It is important to note that getting help should not interfere with or delay the use of epinephrine
Call for help. In the hospital setting, that may mean alerting a resuscitation team. In the community setting, patients and caregivers should be instructed to call for emergency assistance.

Maintaining the Management Plan Through Reevaluation and Further Testing

How frequently you follow up with your patients to monitor the success of their management plan may depend upon the specific food to which your patient is allergic. If you suspect that additional food allergies are present, or if your initial management plan is not helping the patient to your level of satisfaction, it may be necessary to conduct further testing. Follow up testing depending on the specific food your patient is allergic to, may indicate that a child has outgrown an allergy to certain foods, such as milk, egg, soy, and wheat—though they are less likely to outgrow allergies to peanut, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish.² Testing may be needed on an annual basis or at specific intervals as well, depending on the food in question, the age of the patient, and his or her specific medical history.²

Testing with allergen components can provide you with a specific and accurate assessment of a patient’s allergen sensitization profile.³ With test results from allergen component testing you can quantify the allergen-specific IgE antibodies to single, specific and cross-reactive allergen molecules. Having this information may allow you to differentiate between genuine food sensitizations and cross-reactive sensitizations.

Continually working to ensure you have identified your patient’s individual sensitizations will give you the information to make the best management plan possible. It may prevent unnecessary dietary restrictions and assess the risk for future potentially serious allergic reactions. Utilizing component resolved diagnostics may also aid in determining if diagnostic food challenges are necessary.

Determine your patient’s individual sensitizations to optimize management.

Show testing options with allergen components >

Conditions & Diseases

Understand allergic and autoimmune diseases.

Learn more

Tests

Diagnostic tests give reliable results that support primary care physicians as well as specialists in providing optimal patient management.