Parents of kids with food allergies- do you travel internationally?

[DualvansMommy]

We love to travel, and don’t plan on stopping. We’re Deaf, so language is always difficult for us, and ironically I find Mexico, southern America, rest of Europe to be very very adaptable in gesturing & mime. Google translate, and using our medical cards with allergies info in the country’s language in addition was super helpful. So I feel safe to go those places. I wouldn’t mind attempting Africa, as they’re not nuts nor peanut heavy. Of all the countries, I found France to be least f

It’s Thailand and Vietnam that gives me pause. So I’m not sure honestly. We would really like to go there when the boys are in HS cuz my father visited there with his wife, and he said those trips were in his top 5 favorite trips to take. He also recommended a tour guide in Vietnam from talking to someone staying at same hotel, that person told him they used this particular guide cuz of his well known rep to protect his clients allergies info and go to safe places. So I’ll def use that if we do go.


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[smiles33]

DD2 has peanut, fish, and sesame allergies so we didn't think we'd go to Asia since those ingredients are common there (even though I've heard wonderful things about visiting Thailand and Vietnam). Two years ago, we did a clinical oral immunotherapy trial so she can now tolerate very small amounts (e.g., she eats 1 peanut per day to maintain her tolerance). Thus, I finally felt comfortable taking her to Japan (which uses fish or fish broth in a LOT of food). I brought the print-out in Japanese explaining her allergies, but I did not interrogate every waiter/waitress re: ingredients because I feel her risk is much lower.

We did monitor her first bite of new foods that we suspected could have allergens (e.g., at the tonkatsu restaurant, they had sesame seeds at every table so patrons could use the mortar and pestle and make your own sesame paste). She had no reactions to any food on our 10 day trip at all! [We learned during the trial that her lips might tingle or burn when she reacted to an allergen, and the doctor instructed us to give Zyrtec or drink cold ice water.]

Still, without the clinical trial and her tolerance of small amounts of her allergencs, I think we would have continued to avoid visiting countries where her allergens are "hidden" in the food and not obvious.