Yellow Dye Nearly Cost My Daughter Her Life!
Lori was 18 months old and was coming down with a cold. Her doctor had prescribed a medicine for bronchial constriction (colored yellow) and I had given her a baby aspirin (colored orange).
Before retiring for the night I checked on her and heard very labored breathing and a hoarse cough. It sounded like she was starting a bout with croup. I took her into the bathroom and turned on the hot water to add moisture to the air and help her breathe more easily. Her fingers were swollen and when I removed her sleeper I was horrified to see that her whole body was swollen and bruised in several places.
I scooped her up and called to my husband and told him we were leaving immediately for the emergency room. When we got there the doctor told us this was a life-threatening reaction and if we had arrived fifteen minutes later my daughter would have died.
Many anxious hours passed before she was out of danger and it took more than a week for the swelling and bruises to disappear.
I consulted an allergist and learned that aspirin and yellow dye number 5 can form a potent allergic trigger in the body and that combination probably caused her severe reaction. As I recalled the food and drinks she had consumed that day, there were many items that contained the yellow dye.
Later, her brother began to exhibit symptoms of hyperactivity. I was already eliminating yellow 5, but after reading a book by Dr. Benjamin Feingold I realized that the other synthetic dyes, artificial flavors, and some preservatives could be triggering his symptoms (www.feingold.org). Although yellow dye #5 was listed on packages, it took hours of painstaking research to identify products free of the other additives. How much easier my children’s lives would have been if such things were never allowed in foods in the first place.
