Ryan's Story

Ryan has multiple allergies and held a bake and book sale, where he raised £43.05 for Allergy UK.

Ryan has an allergy to milk egg, sesame seeds, nuts kiwi and prawns as well as asthma and chronic eczema. Ryan is also allergic to house dust mites and cat hair. Ryan is often suffering from flared up eczema mainly on his face. We always carry medical bag with his auto-adrenaline injector and medication.

Ryan has learnt to be responsible of having this with him everywhere he goes. Going out for dinner or birthday party is a challenge and can be limiting because we have to stick to same places we have searched before and then when we go every time we must ask again about ingredients. It often depends on the person we talk to sometimes we find inpatient people and that would ruin the night.

Because dust mites can make Ryan very poorly a holiday means a lot of packing, preparation and emails to hotels. Often we prefer to go to my parents abroad where they can accommodate us but we still need to take food.

Flying to places means we need a consultant letter for airport security and extra time to check in our hand luggage.

Ryan found it very hard when we went to Italy on holiday because he wanted to try delicious pizza and restaurants but they could not accommodate us.

We usually spend good time of our trip reading ingredients and asking.

In general as a mother I am always thinking what if, and ending up worrying a lot. I try to make it look normal but food shopping or traveling or birthday parties are the most stressful moments in my life.

We usually shop from Tesco and we take the kids with us but it is always a battle because we have to say no to “may contain” items and look for alternatives.

However in the UK, we find that the number of allergy free places is increasing as is the awareness, especially within the last 3 years.

I keep reminding Ryan that there are more complicated cases than him so we should be grateful for what we have. Ryan wish/ dream is to grow out of allergies and be able to go to shop and choose any sandwich and milkshake!!!!