FAQs

Q: What medications or treatments do you recommend for asthma/allergies/eczema/etc.?

A: Absolutely none. Recommendations should only be made by your medical professional. I have a great deal of post-secondary education, but none of it was in anything related to medicine. I am absolutely unqualified to recommend anything except talking to your doctor and maybe a good allergy-friendly cheesecake.

Q: What's the best way to find out if I have allergies, hayfever, eczema, asthma?

A. These diagnoses can only be done properly by professionals like allergists/immunologists, dermatologists and pulmonologists. This should never be done by a pharmacist, naturopath, homeopath or nutritionist. Elimination-diets should never be done without medical supervision, especially when it comes to children.

Q: What sites do you use for allergy- and atopy-related information?

A: I stick to medically-based sites like MayoClinic or not-for-profit agencies like the Anaphylaxis/Asthma Information Association, Anaphylaxis Canada, the Eczema Society of Canada and the Asthma Society of Canada. There are also a lot of great American and European sites with locally-specific information. I am not endorsed or supported by any of the above organizations, but I do think they have great medically-sound resources.

Q: Why didn't my comment show up on your blog right away?

A. I love comments and hope my posts foster discussion, but I do reserve the right to moderate comments in the event of spam, inappropriate comments or advice which I find medically reckless. So far I've never had to deal with any of that; so, it's really just a precaution. Comments are opinions of the person who wrote them and in no way represent my opinions or beliefs.

Q: Will you write a guest post for my blog, newsletter or website?

A: This is certainly something I love doing. Email me at atopicgirl at yahoo.ca and let me know the details. Unless otherwise discussed and agreed to, I retain the rights to the post or article so it may appear somewhere else at some later date.

Q: Do you post recipes or restaurant reviews?

A: While I'm a fabulous cook, I am far too creative (a.k.a. lazy) to keep specific track of what I put in any given dish. I'm just not anal enough when it comes to cooking. I can certainly tell you what I threw together, but that does not a recipe make. So, no on the recipes. I use Gojee constantly though, since it's easy to save my food allergies in the "I Dislike" section. I do post all my restaurant reviews at AllergyTrails. If you eat out in London, Toronto or Ottawa (all in Ontario), I've got you covered.

Q: Do you accept money, freebies or anything else for product recommendations?

A: Absolutely not. If I tweet or blog about it anything it's because I've either personally bought it and liked it (or not liked it) or because I just think it sounds like a great idea and want to buy it at some point.

Q: I followed you on Twitter, but you didn't follow me back. Why? 

A: While I would like to "followback" on Twitter just to say thank you, I use Twitter as an efficient way to keep track of allergy and atopy-related news. So, if you predominantly tweet about unrelated things, following back would make it more difficult for me to sort through everything. I honestly do appreciate every follow that I get and I check out every single profile and tweet timeline before making a decision. I generally wait a few days, at least, before following back as well since this weeds out those who are just working the system to get their follower numbers up and it's easy to "followback" in bunches when I have time.

Q: I have another question, can I contact you?

A: Yes, please. Email me at atopicgirl at yahoo.ca or tweet me @AtopicGirl. No spammy/unsolicited things. I'm great with filters and I'll report and block you pretty quickly.