If you tell them the restaurant that your child has a dairy allergy don't complain when they won't serve the child dairy!

[Cwtches123]

Relative is a chef currently working at a restaurant at family resort in the UK. He is always happy to cater to allergies but is getting increasingly frustrated by those who make a huge fuss about ordering a special main and then deciding to order a dessert full of the allergen!
Last week a family made a huge fuss that everything had to be dairy free for their child, no problem, all dishes dairy free, then they said child wanted the same dessert as sibling as it looked nice. Siblings dessert was full of dairy, parents insisted this would be ok (after previously stated child had severe dairy allergy) restaurant manager refused to serve it.
People like this give genuine allergy sufferers a bad name, I'm glad the restaurant called their bluff!
Parents were furious that the restaurant would not serve dairy to the child they had said had a severe dairy allergy!!!!

CardsForKittens I’m intrigued by the stats on penicillin allergy too!
I am one of the 10% with a real penicillin allergy - I was given it as a toddler and had to be intubated and spent a week in hospital under observation I thought it was really common!

The FODMAP diet is literally a load of crap

I have found FODMAP to be useful but It is very restricting and so I find it hard to stick to. It did help me identify that onions and garlic are huge triggers for me - for years I assumed it was rice.

I know someone who can't eat onions but is honest, says they won't cause a life threatening allergic reaction but he could shit himself (and no I'm not the poo troll )

I would say that if you have a diagnosis of IBS and it is an old diagnosis - go back to the doctor and demand tests.

For over a decade male doctors have been fobbing me off with IBS - it was a rare form of cancer and by the time it was caught it was in my lymph nodes. If doctors had continued to fob me off I would have died. I now have issues from my surgery that at times are very life limiting and I will probably never be the person I was.

YANBU, well done him for refusing.

I just admit that I am gluten free for breakfast and lunch at work due to IBS but then I may have a glutinous meal at home for ease of eating with others, knowing that IBS/gas will be resolved by next day.

One of my DC has a food intolerance. Before we knew what was wrong with him he was really, really sick. We are strict about him not eating what he is intolerant to but we don't avoid "may contain traces" because a tiny bit won't do him any harm (as advised on diagnosis by the consultant). I had a problem in a restaurant because they didn't want to serve him something that was cooked with something containing what he is intolerant to (effectively "may contain traces") even though I assured them it would be ok.

On the other hand, another of my DC has an allergy (carries epipen) and trying to get people to understand that he can't have "may contain" is an ongoing problem and far more of an issue so I think I'd rather deal with the overzealous server than the alternative.

*i must admit

YANBU my friend's child has a few severe allergies and is too terrified of eating out because restaurants don't take it seriously.

With dairy allergy it's not as black and white as being able to eat it or not though. My son is allergic to fresh milk, he gets hives around his mouth from it, but is fine with all other dairy. Including yoghurt/butter/cheese. Can't have fresh milk, chocolate, cheese powder. So we avoid it in some instances. But also the hives aren't the most serious and is fine after piriton. So sometimes we let him have dairy. His dietician encourages it. His sibling has a nonIGE milk allergy when she was younger, if she had even the smallest trace of milk, even baked milk, she'd have diarrhoea the next 2 days. Not life threatening but we'd avoid it. Very occasionally we'd give in over ice cream or similar, usually to see if she's grown out of it yet.

I never told restaurants they have/had a severe allergy though and I suppose that is the difference.

I don’t think your relative wbu on this.

However, there are reasons for inconsistency

• milk ladder
• intolerance
• mild symptoms (my mum’s friend sneezes five times every time he has dairy, mostly avoids it but can’t resist a cream tea)
• no chef wants to know the ins and outs of your IBS, and no one wants to explain about the itchy rash bla bla bla or that only uncooked egg whites cause it (and equally no one wants a more restrictive diet than necessary) so yes, allergy or vegan might be used as shorthand.
• poor self-control and ethics in the face of puddings (no different to dieters)

Funny how it's largely a female trait

I think a fair amount of fakes comes from the pressure put on girls to look a certain way and it predisposes them to eating disorders, but I have an uneducated theory that carrying babies can put strain on the mother's immune system and can push a dormant condition into being a more pesky intolerance. I have a range of stuff that i react to in various ways and pretty much most of those were stuff that i had eaten more of in pregnancy.
Course it is more likely a massive coincidence and it was just my age and my body getting knackered

I wish I could give my coeliac disease to someone who fancies a fashionable gluten free diet - I would love to be able to eat food again without having to read every label. Even if someone just uses contaminated tongs I am on the toilet for hours, followed by my joints hurting so much I can't walk for days and then a bad eczema flare up to top it off! I don't understand why people would restrict themselves unnecessarily.

My sister's friend taught in a fee paying school school and said the amount of parents when their children started the primary school listing huge lists of their child's food allergies were legendary , their LO's couldn't possibly eat this or that, be exposed to the foods being served, therefore requesting food specially prepared etc However, once they graduated to the high school and able to make their own choices nearly all wanted to have these 'banned' foods, when staff refused they would go home and report the staff to their parents warranting complaints to the Head teacher, fortunately she backed her staff and requested a formal meeting with the parents to discuss the child's 'allergies'. Once word got out about this, there were fewer dietary requests, the Head also requested GP letters from parents to confirm a diagnosis and dietary request. I'm not sure if this is usual of fee paying schools, parents wishing to single their children out for special treatment or not, but it does seem that way? Threats of litigation seem to be commonplace nowadays, businesses are scared of being sued, and it runs the risks of minimizing genuine needs

We had a wedding guest inform us he was gluten intolerant so our venue made him a special starter. He then proceeded to have two massive fuck off Yorkshire puddings with his main

Echoing pp, I did a stint at a summer camp in the states and the number of kids with ‘allergies’ was unreal, half the camp would queue up for their drugs each day. I was really shocked.

I think this has been said already but non-IGE allergies are complicated. My child can eat dairy or egg when it's been heavily cooked (so baked in a cake is ok, but as part of a sauce it is not). When I order for her I usually check the allergy folder and make sure I'm not ordering something that contains dairy but on occasion I'll ask the kitchen when/how the dairy is added and if I know it is ok for her stage on "the milk ladder" then I'll order it. Sometimes I don't explain the nature and level of her different allergies in detail (who wants to listen to that, unsolicited really) and so I ask for the information about what's in the food and I make a decision about whether it will be ok for her. I don't need to court someone else's approval.

Some ignorant people may raise their eyebrows at what they think are inconsistencies but it's not my fault they don't understand how non-IGE allergies work. What can you do? Make a sign and carry it round? I'm always happy to explain the biology/biochemistry if I'm asked but usually people don't ask, just silently judge.

I do wonder if our mega-hygienic routines aren't tripping us all up with some of the intolerance/allergy problems? It's only anecdotal evidence of course, but in retrospect a lot of my friends' children who have grown up to have intolerance or allergy problems also seem to be the same ones who were rampaging everywhere with antibiotic sprays on absolutely everything when they were babies. Obviously intolerance and allergy are very real and genuine problems, I have a family member who was blue-lighted to hospital after eating a prawn that someone had crushed up and put on his pizza as a 'joke' at university even though his shellfish allergy was diagnosed when he was a child and he did everything right to try and prevent contact.

I'm not full scale allergic to anything thankfully but I am intolerant of some foods and medications. Penicillin makes me swell up and my skin peel off. Not life threatening but pretty bloody awful, certainly stops me working for a few days.

I do think 'xyz disagrees with me' is the best shorthand way of communicating to hosts or restaurants that you have a food intolerance. Whereas 'I am allergic to xyz' should be saved up for those of us who are in the position of 'if I come into contact with this I could quite easily die'.

There was a big national project looking at drug allergies in anaesthesia recently.
The antibiotic that we give to people who are penicillin allergic appears to be much more allergenic than penicillin.

And most of those who were given it and had a reaction weren't even allergic to Penicillin in the first place when tested.

Expect more drug allergy testing from now onwards.

There is a difference with drugs between allergy & intolerance too...I puke with dihydrocodeine.

That is an intolerance and sometimes you just need to decide what is worse - being sore or being sick (although I have asked for co-administered anti-puke).

That milk ladder was enlightening. I’m stuck at 3 I’d say.

I’ve had a dairy intolerance all mylife, and suffers a lot as a kid, back inthe it simply wasn’t possible (apparently) that a kid couldn’t drink milk.

So I suffered the shits and gut rot a lot.

Im similar to a PP I avoid dairy if possible, but Will put up with stomach cramps for a cream tea but only a really good one. I’ve never claimed allergy tho, just say i prefer to avoid it.

I think the restaurant did the right thing. Not to teach them a lesson or take back control or anything, but because no matter what the circumstances, if someone has told you a child has an allergy and you give them that food and they have a reaction, they would then be liable. Even if the parents had 'changed their mind', at best it would be a lengthy legal battle and damage to reputation.

Yabu. They may be allergic to things higher up the milk ladder e.g milk / cheese, but able to tolerate things further down it. That can apply to IGE reactions (a histamine response) or non IGE reactions (delayed reactions / gut problems - what used to be called Intolerances).

I am possibly one of the 10 percent wrongly claiming to have a penicillin allergy. But what to do? I have had 2 successively worse reactions to penicillin the last 2 times I have had it which have followed the classic description of penicillin allergy. I'm not willing to risk a yet more serious reaction so I say I'm allergic to it, with the support of my GP. But the NHS won't test whether I am or not, so who knows?

Yanbu. He did the right thing.

Many people also seem unable to distinguish between allergies and intolerances.

I have a non anaphylaxis peanut allergy and was the only kid at my primary school with one. Secondary school there were loads and I felt a fraud without my epipen.

DD1 had CMPI but became fine about 18 months. DD2 has raw egg, tomato, sesame, almond, hazelnut and cashew allergies. Absolutely no cashews anywhere near her but as I don't do the cooking I'm not very au fait with what foods have the last 4 in. Battenburg doesn't necessarily have almond in it! Nutella I stupidly forgot has hazelnuts in (no I didn't nearly give it to her but it just didn't occur to me until I thought about buying some again). Kids burger buns often have sesame buns I've learnt!

Faddy eaters are making life harder for allergy sufferers. I'd never give DD2 Nutella as a 'treat'. Surely no child wants a trip to A&E as a treat??

Working in a pub I regularly had people asking for gluten free meals while knocking back pints of beer

To be fair, about 15 years ago beer used to be permitted on a gluten free diet because the level of gluten was so low. Now the safe recommended limit for gluten has been revised downwards so beer is ruled out.

I know people who have genuinely been diagnosed with coeliac disease but “treat” themselves to gluten occasionally. Then I get accused of being difficult because I won’t do the same. Sorry but just because Janet is willing to have the shits for a week in order to eat your cake, doesn’t mean I will. It drives me nuts because it makes people take me less seriously.