The Allergy Tracker App for both phones
On the refrigerator hang the latest print outs from our last two allergy clinic appointments. The most recent doses are listed, and can be checked at anytime. Next to those printouts on the fridge are other printouts for the maintenance items and treatments, which have stickers or labels attached to them, making it easy to see at any time what he has taken and what he has not.
His maintenance is not constant due to changes in the foods he eats daily, and the frequency of different foods vary from weekly to 3x per week, etc. This creates a difficult task to track on paper or via a spreadsheet. Therefore, I developed an application (personal allergy tracker) and downloaded it onto both my phone and my wife’s phone. It contains all of the doses. I simply select what dose he received by clicking “verify”, and it records a time-stamp and verifies that I took the action, so that at the conclusion of the week we can see what he received and what he did not receive.
Next I created a “labels” tab. When checking ingredients, I take a picture of the ingredient label. Then I select if I have read the information on the label or not. What I mean by this is whether I intended to read the information or just haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.
Three plus years into this process, my natural tendency toward being a “big picture” type person still actively works against me. I enjoy seeing patterns and interpreting data. However, I am often detached; therefore, my mind does not always register what is directly in front of it. A jar of salsa was selected from the cupboard. I turned the container over to check the contents. Somewhere along the line I lost sight of the fact that this was not his jar, it belonged to his grandmother. It contained jalapeno peppers. I was staring at it.
Create a “step” that requires you to sacrifice something, so that you will be forced to pause. The photo and read is intentional friction. It creates an additional delay prior to feeding him, and that delay is what makes the photo and read so effective. It is during this delay that I actually have to look.
I’m a layer with a hole in it. The step is how I make that hole smaller.
This is one family’s experience with a supervised treatment program. Consult your allergist regarding dosage and/or food re-introduction.