Don't Feed the Fear: Food Allergy Anxiety & Trauma
Welcome to "Don't Feed the Fear," where licensed psychologist Dr. Amanda Whitehouse offers expert guidance on managing the social and emotional challenges of food allergies and related conditions. Tune in for compassionate advice, practical strategies, and inspiring stories to help you navigate anxiety and trauma with confidence and resilience.
For more info on resources from Dr. Whitehouse, go to www.thefoodallergypsychologist.com
Theme song: The Doghouse by Kyle Dine, www.kyledine.com
Used with permission from the artist
Don't Feed the Fear: Food Allergy Anxiety & Trauma
Why Social Anxiety in Food Allergies Deserves Attention with Dr. Melissa Engel
Food allergies don’t just bring the fear of anaphylaxis. They also bring unique social challenges that are often overlooked. In this episode, I sit down with psychologist clinician and researcher Dr. Melissa Engel, whose recently published paper introduces a new model for understanding social anxiety related to food allergies.
We discuss why this distinction matters, especially for adolescents navigating peer relationships, independence, and identity alongside food allergies. Dr. Engel shares her hopes that this framework will inspire better screening, more targeted treatments, and a broader acknowledgment of the emotional toll that living with food allergies can take.
If you’ve ever felt that the mental health aspects of food allergies aren’t fully recognized, this conversation will validate your experience and point toward a future where research and care finally catch up to what families and patients already know.
Read Dr. Engel's paper here:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12400901/
Center for Food Allergy And Asthma Research (CFAAR):
https://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/sites/cfaar/index.html
Episode 32 with Dr. Katherine Dahlsgaard mentioned in our discussion:
https://dontfeedthefear.buzzsprout.com/2371319/episodes/17506930-building-bravery-tackling-allergy-anxiety-with-dr-katherine-dahlsgaard
Special thanks to Kyle Dine for permission to use his song The Doghouse for the podcast theme!
www.kyledine.com
Find Dr. Whitehouse:
-thefoodallergypsychologist.com
-Instagram: @thefoodallergypsychologist
-Facebook: Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, Food Allergy Anxiety Psychologist
-welcome@dramandawhitehouse.com
Welcome to the Don't Feed the Fear podcast, where we dive into the complex world of food allergy anxiety. I'm your host, Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, food allergy anxiety psychologist and food allergy mom. Whether you're dealing with allergies yourself or supporting someone who is, join us for an empathetic and informative journey toward food allergy calm and confidence..
Welcome back today on Don't Feed The Fear. I'm joined by Dr. Melissa Engel, a psychologist and researcher who recently published a groundbreaking paper that introduces a model for social anxiety related to food allergies. While many of us living this reality have always known that social anxiety is a very different experience from the fear of exposure to our allergens or anaphylaxis, the scientific literature hasn't really caught up until now. So in our conversation, Dr. Engel explains to us why this distinction really matters how under researched the mental health aspect of food allergies is compared to other medical diagnoses and the hope that this new framework will lead to screening measures, evidence-based treatments and tools that truly address the challenges that families and individuals are facing.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Dr. Engel, i'm so excited to have you here to talk about your work in the overlap of food allergy and allergic diseases and mental health constructs, and your new paper, which was just published at the beginning of this month. Thanks for joining us.
Melissa Engel, PhD:Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Can you tell people, what your, professional focus is now, and how you got into the world of food allergy research?
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yeah, absolutely. So I am currently In my second year of a two year postdoctoral fellowship in psychology at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, which is the Children's Hospital of Northwestern, and I'm in the center for Food Allergy and asthma research at Northwestern, which is also known as cfar. Um, and my work is like half research and half clinical, so my time is. with patients with a variety of medical conditions. And then the rest of my time is spent doing research at cfar. And that is really on, um, the many psychosocial difficulties that patients with food allergies may face. And I originally got into this work. Based on my own experiences growing up with food allergies, I never intended to go into this field or to really do anything with food allergies professionally, but as I began graduates. Goal for clinical psychology and learned more about pediatric psychology and how psychology was so integrated into so many other medical specialties. I noticed this huge gap, um, when it came to food allergy, and so I decided to go back to that route and what I knew firsthand. well. Um, and so kind of combined like my own experience working with patient organizations through like volunteer type roles for several years and just my own experiences growing up and then my professional training, um, with many, many years of graduate school in clinical psychology.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Some of the kids do the teen counselor programs, with advocacy organizations, did you start that young and then get back into it,
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yeah, I was involved when I was a kid actually. One of the, I guess, highlights of my very early career was when I was in fifth grade and I did, The Kids Congress on Capitol Hill, FARE was formerly FAAN and it was a fan kids Congress on Capitol Hill. And, um, Barack Obama was my state senator, so I got to lobby to him, um, about food allergy legislation. So that was pretty cool. And at that point I thought maybe I would go into politics, um, that never went anywhere. Um, but I was in the teen advisory group when I was in Mills. School and high school, um, and helped out with some of the programs at like the national conferences. And then I, I pretty much like paused in college because I was busy with. and education and everything else that comes with that. And then once I entered graduate school and had known I wanted to do pediatric psychology again, had no interest in going back to food allergy. Um, fair actually reached out to me, um, to ask to help with their teen engagement at the start of the pandemic as, um, you know, everything was. Very different in early 2020. Um, and that led to me getting very involved and having like frequent zoom meetings with teens with food allergies and then realizing, um, one that I absolutely love this, and two, that there was so much need for work in this space. And just like looking at the existing research and, and a variety of other chronic medical conditions compared to food allergies, the um. The mental health research and food allergies and, um, clinical care provided, it is pretty sparse. so then I'm like, okay, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life, presumably.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Well, I'm so glad you did because you know I asked that'cause I want. People to understand that you really know this from every angle inside out. You know, the clinical angle, the research angle, all directions that are important to consider combined into the knowledge that you bring to the table. And I, I wanna talk about your research, but I'd be curious first, about what your clinical work looks like
Melissa Engel, PhD:yeah, of course. Um, so my clinical work is, um, a variety because, um, I'm in, so I'm in my last year of training, um, as a postdoctoral fellow, and I see patients with a variety of chronic and acute medical conditions as well as patients, um, without medical conditions, but just, um, anxiety disorders, depression, et cetera, like. Children through adolescents, um, and sometimes young adults. Um, and I see patients who are hospitalized inpatient, um, as well as more patients in in outpatient setting. And I have some patients with food allergies or asthma, um, as well as patients with a variety of other. Chronic medical conditions like, um, type one diabetes, epilepsy, um, gastrointestinal conditions. It really varies.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:What is the. Difference. Difference in being an effective psychologist to someone when it's related to medical conditions versus things that we would think of as more purely or, or you know, wholly mental health based.
Melissa Engel, PhD:That is a really good question, medical conditions influence your, physiological symptoms. So you often have that overlap. And then there's a lot of self-management behaviors that are required to stay safe, um, or manage conditions appropriately. They. Can be difficult. Um, there's oftentimes adherence difficulties, um, social difficulties with speaking up and self-advocacy, especially for kids and teenagers who, um, necessarily wanting to do that because they just want to. quote unquote be normal and fit in. Um, and there also is just like this extra layer that other people don't experience. Um, then when, when it comes to anxiety, which is what I see a lot of the times, I think that something, especially in in food allergies that I hear is that the, like some level of fear is so adaptive. To stay safe and, um, with some, like other fear, like being scared of the dark or scared of, um, an animal that you would be unlikely to encounter or other like very improbable things, um, like managing something like food allergies or other medical conditions does require a lot of vigilance and preparedness and speaking up and like. That, that level of fear is helpful to some extent.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Right, right. Because the very things that you do need to do that are productive and that are helpful and supportive and create safety can become problematic if you do them too much or too, too much of an extreme or too often.
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yes, I.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:It's tough to shoot, but that's how you feel safe. So you would just wanna do it more often.
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yes. And I also think that sometimes this understandably gets missed by medical providers, um, because if they see that patients are being really careful, for example, um, that often gets reinforced.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Absolutely encouraged medical providers and parents, I think will tend to really get involved if they perceive that a child is not being cautious, but they'll praise and elevate, oh, they're so responsible. They got, they're mature since such a young age, which is true and can be good, but, um, I think it gets nurtured and encouraged sometimes more than is helpful.
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yes, I would agree.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:So let's talk about your new paper. Food Allergy Related, social Anxiety, novel Conceptualization of an Important but Overlooked Construct. And I love that you wrote this paper you and I were talking beforehand about how you said you've been thinking about this so long, and I was shocked when I read your paper like, of course this is the case, but it's not something that had been established, professionally in writing. So please tell us about that process of taking that from an what to you was an obvious idea and writing it and sharing it with the community.
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yeah, when I, when we were talking before it, it's almost like comical that this, like if you talk to anyone, but especially young people with food allergies, this is such a salient and obvious issue, yet it has not been in the literature. Um, so I've been wanting to write something like this. For several years and just with, um, all of the demands of training and other projects hadn't gotten around to it. And once I did, I was so thrilled that all of the wonderful co-authors were supportive of this idea so that we could come out with this, with this paper and continue this research in, in the future. But I think something that really struck me was. When, so since 2020, I've been leading Teen Talks for Fair, which is, a monthly virtual peer support program for youth with food allergies between the ages of 11 and 22. and we meet monthly. Between 40 and the, our record was 93 teens each month, and it's just basically a peer support program where they talk about the difficulties they face in daily life, as well as exchange tips, and even discuss lots of non-food allergy related things. Like one time they were discussing, um. Like ranking Oreo flavors because everyone in a certain breakout room could have Oreos. They were safe for their allergies. And I'm like, what? What discussion question are you on? And that was the, what they were discussing.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Oh, what a normal conversation for them to get to have. They might not otherwise. Yeah.
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yeah. Um, so anyway, I lead this program and we always start with polls and I think it was the third anniversary of this program, like three years. Um, and I, it was birthday party themed, so I made a poll, um, about what parts of like. What aspect of attending a birthday party is like the most difficult and with respect to food allergies, and there were a variety of options to choose from, but one of them was like being scared of having a reaction. Um, one of them was like wanting the cake, but then looking so good and like not being able to have it. And one of them was. Just like being asked questions about like, why you're not eating the cake, or just like fearing being negatively evaluated or perceived as different or difficult or overly cautious or things like that. Um, for not eating the cake or pizza or whatever else that you can't have because of your food allergies. And that third option was by far the most chosen and that kind of struck, stuck, uh. Struck me as like evidence that like, yes, this is actually a thing. This is not just imagination. And for these teens with food allergies on this, you know, this was like a very self-selected group of 60 or so people who chose to attend this. But for them, it really was not the fear of having an allergic reaction, but the fear of just this, like being negatively socially evaluated by others at the birthday party for. Turning down the cake for not eating anything, for bringing their own cake, et cetera. Um, and it was that one time where I'm like, okay, I have to do work in this area because it needs attention so that we can improve things.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Absolutely. And people listening might not understand. Why does that matter? Why is it important to make that clarification?
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yeah. Um, so I right now, like in, in the past. Few decades, but especially like in the last decade, there has been so much more of a focus on anxiety and food allergies and also just like on mental health in general and people without food allergies and um, especially in youth. And that is great. Um, and I'm so glad. and mental health in general is being addressed in food allergy because like when I was growing up and attending these conferences, there was absolutely no, no acknowledgement of this. So we've made so much progress. Um, and at the same time, a lot of times when people are talking about. Anxiety in those with food allergies. They're really talking about this fear of an allergic reaction. and that is very true and very prevalent and very important. And at the same time, addressing that fear is very different than addressing the social implications. So if you find out that someone is as anxious with respect to their food allergies, it's really important that you figure out like what that fear or what those fears actually are. Because you would treat them in, in very different ways. Like if someone was fearful of being in close proximity to their allergen, but it was deemed safe. By their allergist to do so. Then you could practice having them, you know, be at a birthday party sitting next to someone that's eating something they're allergic to, versus if they fear the negative social evaluation, you can practice like speaking up for yourself. You can practice intentionally eating different things around other people or, having kind of like a. Scripts that you say when at restaurants, for example, even like some patients that I've worked with, we practice like calling places or like ordering at certain places. When the fear is actually that they're being perceived as difficult or that people like won't understand them or will dismiss them as opposed to like fearing that they're actually going to have an allergic reaction.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Right, and it's one of those examples of what we should do, but often is not automatic really to listen and understand someone. Let them express their fear and articulate what's bothering them, rather than assuming that we know what's going on and we. Assuming we know what kind of help they need.'cause as you described, it's such a different kind of support and a lot of people, I would assume, and in my clinical experience, need both, but at different times, you know, they might have a combination, but the thing that's bothering them right now might not be the thing that pops up next month that they're nervous about. Right. It would be a combination.
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yes. Yes. And it could be different based on just like who they're with or like the context or, um, how old they are or so many different factors. A, a big one that I think about a lot and hear teens talk about a lot is dating. Um, and then that there, there's a contrast of like. that someone could have an allergic reaction from kissing someone who has consumed their allergen. Um, so that would be like the fear of reaction versus other people. And what I actually hear a lot more of is like. Being rejected for being like perceived as difficult or like, you know, having to take precautions when kissing or um, only going to certain restaurants that have good allergy precautions and things like that. Um, and actually with the teens I work with, we often joke about, um, like the Karen meme where Karen, like a few years ago, was that, um. that wanted to talk to the manager and is like demanding. And um, we sometimes joke that uh, sometimes people with food allergies, um, are seen as coming across that way, which is unfortunate.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Right, because they're seen that way and they feel that way, and you. At it's a totally different thing because a Karen is someone who's unnecessarily making a stink, and that's not anyone with a food allergy, what I've ever seen them do. Right.
Melissa Engel, PhD:yes.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:For the most part, people are afraid of, again, the social perception. How will this come across to the people? Particularly we all remember how dating is so nerve wracking. without food allergies in the picture, it's all about how does this person perceive me? So I think that's such a good example of how both of those aspects of the anxiety would come into play. But it's, I think, easier to comprehend why this specific social anxiety piece is so important, it's an important thing at all ages, but especially to teens as social perceptions.
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yeah, and like, just like thinking about like the demands of effective food allergy management, like carrying epinephrine, Asking questions like speaking up, like it, they're, they kind of conflict with the, the, like adolescent development and wanting to just fit in, wanting to take risks, all those things. So there's like this tension.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Yeah, there is, and it just highlights how important it is to know what you're working with and know whether you're a clinician or whether you're a parent. What's this? Kid, or what am I as an adult, what's the actual problem or the fear here in this situation so that I can address it accordingly? And I know, for you, this is just the beginning of future work that you see because you wanna establish this so that you can do lots of things with it moving forward. So tell us what you see in the future based on what you've established here in this paper.
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yes, I am. I'm very excited to have this out so that it kind of like unlocks many new directions that I can take this. So I'd love to develop a measure and. Starting to do that, um, that providers could use to screen for food allergy related social anxiety because the existing, um, questionnaires concerning like anxiety and food allergy specifically are, are really about this fear of allergic reaction. And so this isn't really being captured, so we don't really know. What this looks like in, um, individual patients. And also we don't know what it looks like at scale, like how big of an an issue is this. And I also just wanna emphasize that a certain level of social anxiety is like normative. And I mean like of course it's good to care to an extent what people. Think about you, and it's great that teens want to be normal, for example. but when it prevents'em from engaging in like appropriate allergen management or when this like fear of being negatively evaluated, prevents them from engaging in social things, that's when, um, it would. It's concerning and we want it to be treated. So first I wanna develop this measure so that we can, one, use it to screen patients like in allergy clinics, and then also look at this on a population level, like in a nationally representative sample, and see what other types of factors it's associated with as well. Um, and then. After that, I want to develop interventions to like, like brief treatments that could be used to, uh, like give patients confidence in practicing skills that will reduce their social anxiety. and then in addition to working with patients and families and medical providers, there's also a role for just society in general and messaging that, like we talked about before with Karen, that like patients with food allergies are not difficult their condition is difficult, but them as a person is
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Right.
Melissa Engel, PhD:difficult.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:personalities, they're not behaving in a difficult way. there's a long way to go in terms of society having understanding of medical conditions and what people's needs meet might be.
Melissa Engel, PhD:I think there's also a lot of complexities, um, when it comes to like dietary preferences now and sensitivities and just like. Trend diets. I mean, I was even at, um, dinner with some friends recently and I had an extensive conversation, um, about my food allergies and the precautions that they were able to take and the restaurant was great. Um, but then some other people like. For a certain ingredient to be omitted. Um, and, uh, they're then asked like, oh, is it like an allergy? And they're like, oh, it's just kinda like a sensitivity. And then they're taking all these allergy precautions for everyone at the table when none of these people actually had food allergies. So then it kind of, um. I know, and I know from talking to a lot of like kids and teens that then it dismisses like the, the severity for people with food allergy. So I, it's really tricky and I think that there's like now so many more choices in terms of restaurants and products, et cetera, um, with special diets. So like in, in some ways it's been really helpful, but then in other ways it's been sometimes made more difficult.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Right. It muddies the water for people with severe food allergies and celiac also.
Melissa Engel, PhD:oh yeah, kids are just, everyone's just difficult these days and everyone has their like trend diets and like, this is not really a trend or a fad or anything that anyone with food allergies would choose.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:So. You're talking about treatment and how this could inform, like assessment and identifying people for treatment and then developing treatments. Um, so I would assume then that you have visions of how this could be put into action on a large scale. How schools and healthcare providers, um, could incorporate this into their work.
Melissa Engel, PhD:For right now, I think it would be great if healthcare providers just asked about like the social impact of food allergies. Open-ended questions? Like are there activities or situations that you avoid socially, because of your food allergies or like. Do your friends know about your food allergies? How does having food allergies impact your social life? And I mean, for younger kids, you could tailor down that language developmentally. But just like to, to kind of get a sense of like, what are the ramifications of this? And are these patients avoiding things unnecessarily? Are they. Able to speak up to people about their food allergies. Are they carrying their epinephrine even when they're in different social situations? Do their friends know how to use their epinephrine, et cetera? Um, but I would love to develop like a brief like, uh, intervention. It could be administered in, in a few sessions, uh, too. Patients with food allergies and ideally could be not just like, so I'm in an academic medical center, which is great, but the majority of patients with food allergies aren't necessarily. Being treated at an academic medical center or have easy access to like ongoing treatment apart from like annual visits, and working in all different settings and even like people working in school settings, um, that would really be like an exposure based. model to have kids and teenagers being like practicing exposures of being in social situations in which their allergies are apparent, and handling them with confidence and learning that they can handle it.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Yeah. How beautifully would that work in a school, right? With so many opportunities to incorporate that in real life settings with staff and adult support and making it so safe, right? So many adults around to make sure that the allergy part is still managed safely. Well, kids can, rehearse and, and practice these, interventions for the social aspect of these interactions.
Melissa Engel, PhD:Yeah, and I think I would love to do this like in a group. Um. Model. Um, and I feel like it could work really effectively because I've done, um, like social anxiety groups for kids without food allergies or medical conditions, like more general social anxiety groups for middle school and high school, and I think that that could be really nicely adapted for food allergies.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:The idea would be that this, assessment would be at the point of medical contact at the allergist office, ideally, and then people could be identified who need extra support and referred out to therapists who then already know that this is the treatment effective based on the phobia of anaphylaxis versus the social anxiety piece this, this individual is dealing with. And then have treatments that are, you know, evidence-based. Address that it sounds so smooth and clean. Is that the idea?
Melissa Engel, PhD:Um, I mean, next ideas I would be smooth and clean. It's probably a bit messier in real life, but, um, I know that there's, uh, there are some great exposure based treatments have been recently developed, um, by Katherine Dahlsgaard colleagues for. like the fear of anaphylaxis more specifically, and they could, I could also see there being like modules or like adaptations, um, for general, like food allergy, anxiety treatment. And then you could, based on assessments and um, interviewing patients and families, you could see, okay, does this patient need, um, like one of these treatments or like all of these treatments, for example, because you could. Target both of them
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Absolutely, and as you described, a lot of people will have both, but it's understanding that clearly, or if one is presenting. More problematic at a certain moment in time for that person. And I will link for people who are listening in the show notes, if you missed it, Dr. Katherine Dals guard was on the show talking about, um, her, you know, proximity challenges for these specific phobias, um, related to the fear of the allergen and the anaphylaxis. So one arm of this is developed.
Melissa Engel, PhD:I am a very big fan of Catherine and her work, so.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:yeah.
Melissa Engel, PhD:I think that it, the more people that are caring about this and trying to develop innovative treatments, the better and to collaborate on them we wanna, create the most, seamless and, hopefully brief and cost effective treatments that we can readily give out to people and make accessible. And I know that, Catherine and colleagues have also developed the scales of food allergy anxiety that's really focused on this, uh, fear of anaphylaxis. And I think it would be really cool to develop, um, an instrument that uses. That and the social piece so that they're together as well as any other, um, core fears related to food allergies that have also not been addressed. Because Yeah, I'm saying that in addition to the fear of anaphylaxis, there's this fear of negative social evaluation, but I mean, maybe there's another fear that we're also not capturing, and it would be great to have like one brief and validated measure that could be used.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Yeah, to combine all of those and build on the research that's already done. Yeah.
Melissa Engel, PhD:And it's free because that's, um, another thing
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Right.
Melissa Engel, PhD:want the things that I create to be readily available to people in all settings.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:We all appreciate that. Absolutely. So with the time that we have left, just tell us what's your hope for the future of your career. You'll be finishing your postdoc placement, um, and then do you have goals, any inclination of where you might end up?
Melissa Engel, PhD:Um, yeah. Well, I am hoping to. what I do now in a sense of like having a joint, um, clinical and research career. Um, and I want it to be targeted, like and focused on food allergy. So, research, on identifying the psychosocial challenges that patients and families experience, and then developing interventions So hopefully doing group designing, group programs, as well as individual therapy and also doing a lot of education, like that's something we do a lot of at CFAAR. That's really important to me. So, whether that's high school students or college students or medical students or other medical professionals as well as providers in the community. Adolescence is a really important, um, focus of mine, and that is something that like, no matter what I do, I want to make sure. I keep going with that line. Um, and something that I think is really interesting is that the messaging that I've seen in the literature and just heard in food allergy communities is that it gets easier, um, as. People get older, I think that a lot of that is because like the burden of food allergy management just transitions as it should from, um, parents and caregivers to their adolescent young adult children. But then all of these challenges that are unique to adolescents and young adults, haven't really been spotlighted. So that's something that I definitely want to continue to work on.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD:Well, we're so appreciative to have you in the field and in the food allergy community doing all of this work for us and we'll have you back. I know you've got other papers and things in the works that my audience will wanna hear about too, so please come back and we'll be following your work too,
Melissa Engel, PhD:I'd love to be on again.
I'm so grateful to Dr. Melissa Engel for joining me today and sharing her important work. This conversation feels very hopeful for me, like the beginning of a much needed shift in how we talk about conceptualize and respond to the mental health aspects of food allergies. Here are three action steps you can take right now after listening. Number one, check the show links or go back to find episode 32, which is the one we mentioned today with Dr. Katherine Dahlsgaard. Diving into the phobia and fear of anaphylaxis piece that is important and important to distinguish from the social anxiety piece that we talked about today. Number two, you can follow Cfar, C-F-A-A-R, the Center for Food Allergy and Asthma Research, to stay up to date with their latest studies, events, and educational efforts. And number three, if today's episode resonated with you, please share it with another food allergy parent family or friend who might benefit from feeling seen in this discussion. Spreading awareness is one of the best ways to make sure that this work gets the attention that it deserves. Thank you so much for listening. the content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any questions about your own medical experience or mental health needs, please consult a professional. I'm Dr. Amanda Whitehouse. Thanks for joining me. And until we chat again, remember don't feed the fear.
