I gave up my job due to the stress of my child’s food allergies

Katy, a mother from Cornwall, recounted how the persistent anxiety of her daughter Molly’s severe food allergies led her to quit her job. The child, who is five, has life-threatening allergies to milk, egg, and certain nuts, and Katy feared for her life during a critical incident abroad.

“Molly was one when we were in Italy, and after eating a meal at a restaurant, she suddenly became very lethargic, then just went floppy,” Katy recalled. “We were terrified… We sprinted through the streets to reach the hotel,” she said.

Despite explaining the risks to staff verbally and using translation cards, Molly’s allergic reaction occurred, prompting Katy to administer an adrenaline pen and rush her to the hospital. The trauma of that event, and a similar one a year later in England, made Katy feel she had no choice but to leave her legal career to care for her daughter full-time.

Katy’s decision came after Molly’s second severe reaction, triggered by a milk-containing muffin, left her with distrust in others’ ability to manage her allergies. She had planned to return to work following maternity leave for her second child, but the fear of Molly’s safety outweighed professional opportunities.

The Crisis in Allergy Care

Her experience has intensified calls for better NHS support for immunotherapy treatments. The National Allergy Strategy Group is pushing for the government to expand access to desensitisation therapies like food oral immunotherapy (OIT), which can cost thousands privately. Currently, the NHS is conducting trials to assess OIT’s effectiveness, while developing guidelines for local allergy care services.

OIT involves gradually exposing patients to small, controlled amounts of allergens to train their immune systems. However, an NHS spokesperson noted that it is not yet routinely available, citing limited evidence on the safety and efficacy of existing products.

A Growing Concern

A 2024 The Lancet study revealed food allergy rates in England have nearly doubled since 2018, with 4% of children under five affected. Emergency hospitalisations for anaphylaxis from food allergies also doubled over 20 years, reaching 1,709 cases. Professor Adam Fox, a paediatric allergy expert, stressed the urgent need for action: “The problem is not doing the research, but for the NHS to then put the resource and organisational will between turning it into something people can access in a useful timeframe.”

Meanwhile, a charity-backed OIT program operates in nine NHS hospitals, using commercially available foods to treat peanut and milk allergies. Parents Scott and Louisa, from Cornwall, faced similar challenges when their daughter Carey had a frightening anaphylactic reaction as a toddler. They opted for private treatment, enduring the financial and logistical burden of traveling 400 miles for each session. “It was a big sacrifice,” Scott admitted, highlighting the strain of managing their child’s condition outside the NHS system.

With Molly now attending school and the NHS planning to mandate allergies training, Katy expressed cautious optimism about her future return to work. Yet, the emotional toll of her daughter’s allergies remains a daily reality, underscoring the broader need for systemic change in allergy care.