Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

I understand that the "booze culture" is a lot weaker in Canada than in the UK... we had a cultural shift about 30-35 years ago away from booze. Canadians shifted to marijuana.... at least to some degree.

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

Take it you would have come across the http://www.anaphylaxis.org/ websiite but for others the province thing of different rules is still true.
For instance -

SABRINA’S LAW

On January 1, 2006, it became law for all school boards in Ontario to have standards in place to protect children at risk for anaphylaxis.
Bill 3: An Act to protect anaphylactic pupils (“Sabrina’s Law”) requires schools to reduce the risks of causative allergens, identify children with life-threatening allergies, establish emergency measures to treat a reaction, provide regular staff training in the use of epinephrine, and ensure school-wide communication of the standards.

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

My son has a life-threatening nut allergy and I have found it not overly difficult to deal with it here in BC.

-Request at the beginning of each school year that the classroom be peanut free. (Some teachers wanted to "manage" by ensuring no sharing, wiping off desks, etc. which turned out to be good in theory but not so good in practice. Your child has to spend the day in the classroom where lunch is eaten. Peanut butter is a sticky substance with a potent smell, so it is hardly fair to ask someone with a severe allergy to spend the day in a room where it has been consumed.)
-Ensure if your child does after school activities such as sports for example that parents are aware of the nut allergy and ask them not to bring nuts. Most are quite cooperative. Also, rules apply at Hallowe'en.
-Most items in stores are clearly labelled and the labelling is getting better all the time.

Good luck!

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

I have met folks who are so allergic that they start reacting if they are even in the same room as nuts! Not funny.

It does seem to be a recent phenomenon though ...... odd.:huh:

PB and M = marmite????? YUM!!! :D

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

What is even more interesting and this is just an observation my wife made when she was an Admin-Secretary in an elementary school in North East Calgary (a lower socio-economic area) with a large refugee population i.e. Afghani, Serbs, Vietnamese etc.

There was perhaps one epi pen in the whole school and virtually no other allergies of note. Yet she had friends in at least two schools in the North West Calgary (an upper middle income area) and both schools had a drawer full of epi pens and numerous allergies.

Why the difference? I don't really know. You could say the the kids from the North East were allowed play out in the dirt far more then the kids in the North West and therefore developed anti-bodies, it's one theory that I've heard. :confused:

This also seems to be a recent phenomenon at least it appears to have developed over the last ten to fifteen years or so.

Do we have an unhealthy fixation with cleanliness today?

That seems to be one possibility.

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

I did read about Sabrina's law- but unfortunately we'll be in alberta!

Thanks

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

This does seem to be the case which is safer for my son!

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

Thanks very much for this- I wondered if canadians had that penchant for peanut butter sarnies- and I had no idea they ate lunch in same room.

A friends child was being managed for peanut allergy. Everything went well , until the teacher decidd to make nut and seend cakes for the birds and didn't even click when he fell ill (luckily he has a mild allergy and just had hives and eye problems as he had only touched them!

Gryphea

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

Nut allergy has always been around but it is increasingly common- alarmingly so. They don't know exactly why

several theories are:

cleanliness of environment (not likely in our case)
lack of exposure to early gers (again not likely in our case)
increased exposure to hidden nuts at a young age

etc

My sons' is likely to be genetic as his granddad carries an epipen for stings and the pead says its the tendancy to be allergic, not the allergy itself, that is genetic

Gryphea

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

There is a possibility that the schools were self-selected by their parents on the basis of the allergy management. Around us in UK there are 3 primary schools, all taking kids form predominantly white middle class areas, the smallest , 90 kids, had no epipens but had had one previosuly, the largest , 200 kids , had no epipens, the other one 130 kids, had 4 epipens.

We happened to chose the one with 3-4 epipens as we overall liked the school- but what I am saying is that conciously or sub-conciously , schools record of dealing with allergies may by a criteria for parental selection.

Cleanliness is a credicble theory at the moment. Whislt nut allergy has been around for a long time - there has been a recent explosion and they don't know why- it hasn't been caused by over diagnosis- so its genuine trend. For us its likely to be genetic susceptibility to allergy , but for the majority??

Gryphea

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

It's unlikely the self selection theory would apply. I don't believe there is a huge movement of kids at the elementary level here in Calgary for that type of concern. At least not in all the years my wife worked for the CBE. Movement of kids here is more to do with either language instruction or academics.

When I think about it cleanliness is not the right word it's more the fear of germs and bacteria. We seem to have a fixation with antibacterial cleansers at the moment. I presume it's the same in the UK?

Cheers
Steve

Re: Nut allergy- how easy in canada
 

The cleanliness/ anti-germ theory is a serious credible theory that has neither been proved or disproved but its a definate possbility. We (UK) have a wealth of anti-bacterial stuff and I think that the myriad of chemicals does nothing to help (eg all that cleaning stuff, air freshners etc)