Latitude Blog

The holiday season can be a time filled with joy and togetherness. But an abundance of food-centered traditions may be a challenge for families managing food allergies. Food allergy testing and treatment can be a long-term solution to help relieve stress around all food events, but this holiday season you can help ensure that everyone enjoys the holidays by shifting the focus to other types of fun and connection.

Thomas, a high school junior, has managed multiple food allergies his entire life. He shares his powerful story from his earliest memories of having food allergies, to his proactive treatment, and transformation.

Lilly is grateful for the protection and freedom that she gained from treatment for her sesame allergy. She is hopeful that a new level of awareness of sesame allergies, and her own story, shared here by her mother, will make life safer for so many others.

Make a New Year’s resolution to proactively address food allergies with testing and treatment that’s customized to meet your unique needs.

We’re here to help make the holidays less stressful.

What are you most looking forward to this Halloween — fun costumes, time with friends, or seeing your child get excited about going door-to-door in your neighborhood? For food allergy families there is an extra layer to any holiday — keeping your child safe. 

Marco was first diagnosed with food allergies at the age of one. By the time he was a senior in high school and first came to Latitude in 2019, he had already outgrown 4 of his 16 allergies. That year Marco and his family had received encouraging news after blood work with their longtime allergist  — but he needed to go through 12 oral food challenges (OFCs) to determine if all of his allergens had been outgrown.

Attempting to complete all of the OFCs — often 4 hour or more appointments, sometimes requiring spacing more than a week a part —  in a short period of time seemed virtually impossible. The wait time to get into his existing doctor was very long and those types of appointments were very limited. 

Serendipitously, around the same time, Marco’s mom, Nicole, met Latitude co-founder and fellow food allergy parent, Julie Bitler, at an allergy conference. Nicole was excited about the opportunity that Latitude provided for Marco to get answers quickly and the possibility for OIT in the future. Their story has brought both mother and son on a 20 year journey.

May is Food Allergy Awareness Month, during which many of us have been sharing facts and our personal experiences living with food allergies. The month of May also happens to be Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, a time to celebrate our AAPI culture and stories. 

Sharon Wong of Nut Free Wok, shares her experiences as a Chinese-American food allergy advocate and food blogger, and includes some of her fellow AAPI food allergy mom bloggers to share their experiences as AAPI food allergy moms. Read on to see what her friends Jenny Lee from Clean Eating Gluten Free Foodie and Rochie DeSagun from The Frugalista Mom have to say.

Suzanne’s daughter Klara was born with eczema and started to show hives and rashes after eating her first foods. Initially, Suzanne didn’t know where to go for care. Here is her story and experience at Latitude.

With the FDA approval for emergency use of the first vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID), there is ongoing dialogue in the food allergy community about use in allergic individuals. The FDA has determined that individuals with food allergies can safely be given the vaccine.