For four-year-old Owen Maher and his family, dealing with his allergies is a full-time job.
It started when they discovered as a three-month-old that he was allergic to milk and dairy. When he started on solids, the allergy list grew to include eggs and peanuts.
“It is pretty encompassing and it has been since he has been there since three months of age,” his mother Phoebe Lynch said.
“I had to cut out dairy when I was breastfeeding and it becomes an element of your day. So many social things revolve around food. Once we found out he had anaphylaxis, we got fact sheets and sent it to all our friends and family.
“We are hyper vigilant and always looking at food.”
Phoebe said the family, who is from Keilor East, hardly went out to restaurants and when they did, they called ahead to make sure that Owen can eat there.
“A lot of people don’t know what anaphylaxis is, let alone how to provide safe food. We go to McDonalds a lot,” she said.
“He will eat chips and that is pretty much the only safe food he can eat, but we still have to be careful.”
Owen has had one anaphylaxis reaction after a food product wasn’t labelled properly. Overall, an ambulance has been called for him four times and he’s ended up at the Royal Children’s Hospital 10 times due to his allergies.
Phoebe said the scary thing was on three or four of those occasions they didn’t know what had caused the reaction. The family cares an EpiPen and are part of the EpiPen Australia group, which provides them with information.
She said tests had shown Owen would likely have the allergy at least through his teenage years and through to adulthood.
Phoebe said she wanted other people to just be mindful of their behaviour and the impact it can have on people with allergies.
“If you go to play centres, eat at the table and go and wash hands with soap and wipe down the table so there are no traces,” she said.
“Or if you have kids, kids with allergies still want to be involved in events. I say what Owen’s allergies are and provide food alternatives and make cupcakes so he can still be part of it.”
Phoebe is sharing Owen’s story as part of World Allergy Week, which ran from June 13-19.
