Videos 
Hello, my name is Lucas and I am 8 years old. I am allergic to wheat, barley, rye and egg. I have a brother and his name is Felipe. He’s 3 years old. I discovered my allergy at 7 months, when my parents gave me a soup for the first time with pasta that had wheat and shortly thereafter my eyelids got swollen and I went to the hospital.
This year, in early November, I went with my mother for the first time to an event about food allergies in Washington, DC, in the United States, which was called Contains: Courage FARE Summit. FARE stands for Food Allergy Research and Education and it is an American organization for food allergies. At the event there were about a thousand people and I felt surprised, because I didn’t see anyone from Brazil, besides us!
It was nice to meet other children and teenagers with allergies! The event lasted 2 days and the lecture I liked the most was the Innovation Tank. The innovation tank had 5 teenagers presenting allergy related technologies, like my favorite which was an application that reads food label barcodes and specifies the ingredients and especially the allergens.
During the event, I learned that there are ways to travel safely. For example, research on the area where you will be staying, take some safe foods and always have your medication. Make an action plan if you have an allergic reaction, and carry it always with you.
I felt very safe to be there, especially due to the food options, as they had options of restaurants in the area with explanation of what allergies they could include and also at the event there was an area with samples of cookies and other snacks that were ok for me. The only thing that scared me was people asking me about my allergies and several people had a lot more allergies than me.
I would love to be able to participate in an event like this here in Brazil!
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