Rare food allergy cases up, affects Tucson boy

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) –
Imagine never knowing the taste of pizza or a hamburger. A growing number of kids are experiencing a rare disease that causes them to get sick if they eat most foods, and conditions in Arizona may be causing more cases.

It’s called Eosinophilic Esophagitis, or EE. Two-year-old Patrick Howe of Tucson has the disease makes you allergic to just about every food.

“Crumbling over in pain, screaming bloody murder, vomiting,” describes his mother, Erin Howe. She says Patrick’s already allergic to several foods, but she’s still learning which foods makes him sick.

“He has a hard time eating anyways so we’re not sure if there are a lot more things that he’s allergic to or that cause inflammation.”

It’s a disease that affects more than one in two thousand people with cases increasing up to tenfold in the past ten years. Doctors are now diagnosing EE at a higher rate especially in Arizona where our environmental allergens can affect someone’s sensitivity to certain foods.

“Those cross-react with food allergens and cause the disease,” says Dr. Fayez Ghishan, chairman of UA Pediatrics.

The thing that makes EE unique is the number of trigger foods and delayed reaction to those foods. Eating the wrong thing can make a child very sick and send to them hospital, so they can only eat amino acids, a food element.

“That doesn’t taste very well so you either have to put the tube in the nose or in the stomach,” says Ghishan.

Patrick gets by on pricey mail order formula and special ten dollar box drinks. He’ll never know what normal food tastes like.

Experts say cases where kids will have to be fed through a feeding tube are rare. The disorder can generally be treated through topical steroids.

– Carissa Planalp (source: Tuscon News Now)