It’s hard enough to think about your teenager dating, but what about the fact that they could kiss someone and have a life threatening allergic reaction? Does your child know that if they are food allergic and they kiss someone who has recently eaten their allergen they could anaphylaxis?
With 11 million Americans food allergic and 3 million of them peanut allergic, food allergy studies are going on every day. Two such studies showed that 5 and 12 percent of reactions surveyed were mostly due to kissing someone just after they’d eaten a food allergen. A recent studied found that eating peanut butter and then waiting 4 hours and eating a non-peanut meal did reduce the peanut allergen in the saliva to undetectable.

Most importantly, talk to your teen about their risk of this type of reaction. Chewing gum and brushing your teeth does not remove the allergen. Make sure they communicate early on with whomever they are seeing that ultimately peanuts are out for them too and to avoid all other food allergens many hours before thinking about a kiss.

Sources:
http://allergicliving.com/2014/04/28/kissing-with- severe-food- allergies/
http://www.webmd.com/allergies/news/20060306/kissing-peanut- allergy-dangerous