Grocery store specials on milk, butter and other pantry staples offer little promise for Brenda Eich to save money. Her youngest son has an intolerance to milk and soy protein.

Those two ingredients rule out anything from macaroni and cheese to ice cream for 5-year-old Carson.

He doesn’t get anaphylaxis, a serious allergic reaction that can cause death. But he does have gastrointestinal problems if he has milk or soy protein. The only solution is avoiding those ingredients.

“I just buy whatever is safe for him. It really doesn’t matter what it costs,” says Eich, 42, of Sioux Falls.

With a household of five, including two teenage boys and her husband, Tobey, groceries bills are high. Eich often shops at specialty stores like Meadowsweet Markets to buy Carson’s mainstays, like vegan cheese slices and his favorite snack, Rice Dream, an ice cream substitute that’s $4 per quart.

The Eich family is a glimpse into the confusing and expensive world of food allergies and sensitivities. Expenses run the gamut, from doctor’s visits to maintaining a supply of EpiPens, which can run around $100 for a two-pack.

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Two-year-old Ethan Wily had a cold recently, so at first it wasn’t surprising that he started coughing last week after eating some pistachio gelato.

But he started coughing up mucus, and then gasping for air. His parents gave him an antihistamine, but it didn’t stop the reaction. By the time the boy’s parents brought him to their local hospital, he could barely breathe.

“His face was really swollen. He looked like an alien,” said Ethan’s father, Preston Wily of Lehi, Utah. “We didn’t have any idea an allergy could be so bad.”

He said the child had shown only a somewhat mild reaction to peanuts before this.

It seems like more and more children in the U.S. are developing food allergies, and there’s data to back that up. The number of kids with food allergies went up 18 percent from 1997 to 2007, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 3 million children younger than 18 had a food or digestive allergy in 2007, the CDC said.

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A few physicians are already practicing it, though many allergists object because it’s untested. Clinical trials are underway.

Caroline Cooper will pack her bags and head off for college this fall secure in the knowledge that she’ll be able to safely eat anything the cafeteria dishes up.

Her mother, Heather Cooper, meanwhile, will not have to worry that Caroline, 17, will go into anaphylactic shock while alone in the dorm.

This is notable because from the time she was 11 months old until this past spring, Caroline Cooper was severely allergic to milk — a bit of cheese or yogurt could have killed her. But early last year, the teenager began a type of immunotherapy, eating minute but gradually increasing amounts of milk protein. In March she tasted her first bite of ice cream, the same day she was accepted in the honors business program at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Children’s visits to the emergency room for serious food-allergy reactions may be on the rise, if the experience of one major U.S. medical center is an indicator.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston found that the number of food-induced allergic reactions treated in their ER more than doubled over six years — from 164 cases in 2001, to 391 in 2006.

There was an even sharper increase in the number of more serious, and sometimes life-threatening, reactions known as anaphylaxis. Signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis include skin reactions like hives and flushed or pale skin; nausea, vomiting or diarrhea; dizziness or fainting; difficulty breathing; and a sudden drop in blood pressure that can lead to shock.

In 2001, the current study found, there were 78 cases of food-induced anaphylaxis; in 2006, that number was 207.

That corresponded to a rate of 15 anaphylaxis cases for every 10,000 ER visits in 2001, and a rate of 38 per 10,000 in 2006, the researchers report in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Young children with food allergies tend to be somewhat smaller than their peers with no such allergies, despite having a similar nutrient intake, a small study suggests.

On average, food-allergic children in the study were still well within the normal ranges of weight and height for their age.

But the findings underscore the importance of making sure kids with food allergies have a well-balanced diet and see the pediatrician for routine growth check-ups, the researchers report in the journal Pediatric Allergyand Immunology.

Research suggests that food allergies are becoming more common among children worldwide. An estimated 4 percent of U.S. children have a food allergy — most commonly to peanuts, cow’s milk and eggs.

Since parents have to be careful about food selection for children with such allergies, there is concern that some kids may not get enough of certain needed nutrients.

For the new study, Dr. Antoine Deschildre and colleagues at Jeanne de Flandre Hospital in Lille, France, assessed 96 children with confirmed food allergies, diagnosed after objective testing. Each was matched with another child the same age and sex but free of food allergies. Children in both groups were 4 years old, on average.

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