I’m so grateful to share that I recently published my first collaborative article with Allergy Force!
My article, “Food Allergies: I Found My Voice Speaking Up for Others,” is a particularly meaningful one for me because it gave me the opportunity to reflect on something I’ve been doing for years: speaking up about what it’s actually like to live with a life-threatening food allergy.
Now that I’ve published my book, Invisibly Allergic: A Memoir of Survival, Advocacy, and Change, and it’s out in the world, I’m able to begin promoting it– which is so fun. First off, if you’re not familiar with Allergy Force, they’re a food allergy app and website designed to make some of the everyday logistics of living with food allergies a little easier.
Their app includes features like:
- Chef cards in multiple languages
- Multiple custom allergy profiles
- Emergency contact alerts
- Hospital and pharmacy finder
- Food recall alerts
- Location sharing
- Recipe searches
- Epinephrine pharmacy reminders
- And more
I especially wish I had their app when I had my allergic reaction in April 2025. Thankfully, everything worked out okay and I was able to get to a nearby urgent care, call my husband, and share my location, but having it all in one spot would’ve sped up the process…
When this reaction occurred I was alone and traveling in an unfamiliar city, and an emergency situation like that can make it incredibly difficult to think through all the things you might need to do. Having one place where I could quickly access emergency contacts, share my location, or more quickly find nearby medical care could have taken some of the mental load out of an already terrifying situation.
You can compare Allergy Force’s free and premium features here. I love that they offer an accessible and free version, but they are affordable overall, as the premium version is currently $1.99/month or $19.99/year.
Finding My Voice Through Advocacy
This Allergy Force collaboration gave me an opportunity to write about something personal and introduce myself to their audience through the story of how I found my voice.
For me, food allergy advocacy didn’t happen all at once. It grew out of years of navigating situations where I felt misunderstood, dismissed, or simply unsure how to speak up.
Eventually, I realized that sharing my own experiences could help other people feel less alone, while also helping people without food allergies understand what life with one can actually look like. The more I shared, the more I could connect and relate with others.
That’s what I explore in my article for Allergy Force, including the fact that writing my food allergy journey down actually forced me to confront some of the uncomfortable truths about my life I’d been avoiding.
A little excerpt from the article:
Putting “pen to paper” to write about my food allergy reactivity and daily life made me see how I’d downplayed my allergy experiences to myself.
“It’s not worth telling them about my allergy.”
“Maybe most of it is in my head.”
“I don’t want to say anything because I don’t want to burden anyone.”Writing it all down actually forced me to confront uncomfortable truths about my life.
“My food allergies are life threatening.” My peanut allergy is truly life or death.
“Cross contact is real.” It’s not a figment of my imagination. It lurks and ambushes you. It can happen anywhere and everywhere.
“Our food allergy labeling laws are terrible.” We all have a right to know what’s possibly in our food.
That’s the story I share in my first collaboration with Allergy Force, including how starting Invisibly Allergic, writing my memoir, and connecting with the food allergy community changed the way I saw my own story.
Read “Food Allergies: Speaking Up for Others, I Found My Voice” on Allergy Force
If you’ve ever struggled with speaking up about your food allergy, wondered whether your voice could actually make a difference, or felt like you were the only person navigating these experiences, I hope you’ll give it a read.
More on Allergy Force
The Allergy Force website has a blog and resources, just like my site! They featured me in their “Books for Empowering Kids” section, which I thought was AWESOME (I love a trusted book recommendation list! If you haven’t seen my own must-read book list, here it is!)
Have you read my book yet? If not, you can read Invisibly Allergic: A Memoir of Survival, Advocacy, and Change by:
- Requesting it at your local library as a physical book with: ISBN: 9798993715117
- Requesting the e-book via the free library app, Libby with: ISBN 9798993715155
- Purchasing it wherever you prefer to buy books!
Buy Invisibly Allergic on Bookshop.org
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Read “Food Allergies: Speaking Up for Others, I Found My Voice” on Allergy Force