I’ve been accused of being one because I withheld potential allergens from my child long past the time most othe rparents had fed them.

Why? Because I have allergies. Because I’ve been in anaphylaxis myself three times due to allergy shots, had hives from three different foods, and I’m hoping that delaying and limiting exposure to allergenic foods might lessen the likliehood of my kids going through this…

Funnily enough, my allergy skin tests show me as severely allergic to several foods I eat with impunity. And the food that caused hives the quickest didn’t cause a rise on my skin test at all. And it appears to be dose-specific, because I got hives after eating it at every meal for three days (fresh melon season), and I’ve since learned I can eat smaller amounts less frequently without trouble. I think its perfectly possible that a child who has been fed the same food every meal for four days (as is recommended by The Experts) might have a reaction that doesn’t recur later. It doesn’t make the parents paranoid.

It’s assumptions like this that make life even more difficult for those of us with extremely severe allergies or children with severe allergies. Even people with anaphylaxis have a hard time getting doctors to take their reactions seriously these days, partly because of this kind of rhetoric about paranoid parents who don’t know “normal” for their own child.