Halloween allergy tips

It's all about costumes, trick-or-treating, and of course, the candy. But for kids with food allergies, those sweet treats can come with some serious risks. Joining us now with some Halloween allergy safety tips is Dr. David Jung. A board-certified allergy and immunology specialist at Spring Valley Allergy and Immunology. Now, we don't want families to have that scary of a time. I also got some props here so we can dissect some of this. But first off, the big thing here. What's the one thing that you want parents to take away when it comes to Halloween allergies? Well, I mean, so Halloween obviously is a time of fun and trick-or-treating and candy. But it can be stressful if you have food allergies in the family. Just because a lot of the candies that you pick up trick-or-treating can have. The common allergies that we diagnose today. That's very important, and when we talk about the different types of candies, what are the main allergens that you see in these candies? Yeah, so the common things we see are peanuts, tree nuts. We can see dairy, egg, wheat, and soy in a lot of the candies that we see. Now, first let's talk about parents or adults, right? Sometimes people don't know that they have an allergy. What are some of the reactions that they could experience that they should look out for? So allergic reactions can look like hives on the skin, swelling of the face, lips, and tongue, could have trouble with your breathing, and sometimes even vomiting. At what point, you know, do you need to really get medical help versus, oh, I could do some Benadryl or something? Well, yeah. I mean, in the middle of a reaction, if something is that significant, you definitely want to get some help right away, whether that's calling 911 or getting to an emergency room as quickly as you can. And I want to give parents credit because we know a lot of parents, they're on top of the kids, they understand the food allergies, but sometimes they don't know, right? A child might be allergic to something. And kids don't necessarily share when they're going through something, so what do you look for as a parent? Well, some of those symptoms are pretty obvious. You can look at their skin, you can look at their face, if they're having trouble breathing, and obviously if their stomach is upset. Those are some of the very clear, objective symptoms that you can see. Are these immediate? They are immediate. Usually reactions can happen within minutes in many cases. It can take up to an hour or two to develop. So I've got my little pan of candy here. What are we looking for? How do we stay safe? Well, yes. What do we avoid? So some of the candies that you're, the obvious things you're looking for are the nuts, peanuts, tree nuts. Some of these candies like taffy, you might have things like soy and wheat in them that are not obvious to the eye. And not all of them actually say what's inside. Right, so an important thing to point out is that Fun-sized candies, which you see so much of on Halloween, can actually have different ingredients than those that are found in full-sized candies. And what's even trickier is that these fun-sized packages may have different labeling or no labeling or ingredients at all. So you have to be really careful when you're looking at those. Now you say preparation is key. What does that mean for you? So preparation is, there's a number of things you can do to prepare and have a safe night on Halloween. First, go trick-or-treating with a parent, Thank you. Expectations and conversations with your kids before you hit the road trick-or-treating that might be having safe allergens safe Candies that are allergen free that you can have on the road with your friends Or it might also be a no eating while trick-or-treating policy as well. That's great. We saw the information there on the screen Where people can learn more doctors young. Thank you so much your time. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. It's All right. Thank you. Definitely some good advice to take for anybody that's heading out there. Now, our Halloween show is going to be getting ready coming up here at the top of the 10 o'clock. And we want to give you just a little bit of a sneak peek at the studio set. It's a scary one this year, but it's always classic, always epic. The crew at Markov's is working overnight. I came in at the wee hours of 3 a.m. and they were there setting up to make this show spectacular for you. So make sure you don't miss it again. The entire crew is going to be a part of this coming up. And we've been asking you all morning.