(NEW YORK) — A peanut allergy treatment often used on children 4 years old and up in the U.S. appears to be safe for toddlers too, a new study has found.

Around 2% of children in the country suffer from the allergy, some to a debilitating degree, which is why the discovery is “extremely exciting,” said Dr. David Stukus, professor of clinical pediatrics and director of the Food Allergy Treatment Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

In the study, conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases across multiple hospitals, researchers added powder containing peanuts to the daily diets of children, and found that over time, a large majority of them became desensitized to peanuts.

A smaller group of children even achieved full remission, meaning they were no longer allergic to peanuts at all.

While almost all the children studied had reactions to the peanut products, most were mild to moderate in severity, experts said.

The study also found that the younger the patients were when they started the treatment, the better they were able to tolerate peanuts, and the more likely they were to achieve full remission.

This means the treatment may be more effective if started while children’s immune systems are still developing.

“This suggests that if we do start treatment younger, there is a potential to help some children become non-allergic,” said Dr. Lisa Wheatley, section chief at the NIAID Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation.

Pediatric immunology experts interviewed by ABC News said they believe the study marks an important step in allergy research; still, they said more studies are needed to better understand young children’s immune systems and how they change.

The experts said children with a history of severe allergic reactions were excluded from the study, and warned that adding peanut products to the diets of children with known peanut allergies can cause serious reactions and should only be done under the guidance of a physician.

They added that while the study’s findings are promising, there is no one-size-fits-all treatment plan for children with peanut allergies, and parents must weigh the risks, benefits and expectations before letting their kids receive a treatment of any kind.

Aubrie Ford is an emergency medicine resident at Northwell Health, in New York, and a contributor to the ABC News Med Unit.

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(NEW YORK) — There’s no denying therapy can be a valuable resource for guiding you through life’s ups and downs.

However, it’s also important to recognize that your first meeting with a therapist may not feel like the perfect match for your needs.

For Emily Maldonado, a 27-year-old New York City-based public relations and marketing manager, it took almost a year before she realized her first therapist was not a good fit. After opting to discontinue services, she realized what she actually was looking for in therapy, and that helped her evaluate other therapists with a clearer direction.

“Now, I love my therapist and we’ve been going strong for over a year,” said Maldonado. “My original therapist just listened, but now I know I’m the type that appreciates action items and homework.”

She added, “My current therapist is also Latinx like me so there are some things she just gets.”

Licensed therapist, relationship expert and New York Times bestselling author Nedra Glover Tawwab told Good Morning America the process of finding the best therapist can be done like speed dating.

“It’s a way for you to figure out pretty quickly, in 15 or 20 minutes by phone or video, if this person will be a good fit,” said Tawwab. “You just talk for 15 or 20 minutes and sort of figure out if it would be a good situation — and yes, you can talk to a few therapists within the same week to figure out who might be the best fit.”

What to know before you go to your first therapy session

Experts agree that nerves are normal as you’re talking to a stranger and telling them very deep, personal information.

“There is no other space in which we do that, so there’s nothing to compare it to. So it is an awkward and uncomfortable encounter, initially,” said Tawwab.

Talkspace therapist Elizabeth Keohan advised that you shouldn’t expect immediate resonance in the beginning.

“It takes time to acquire a good fit with a therapist, so an openness to feeling emotionally challenged can help navigate whatever is causing tension,” she said.

Kate Rosenblatt, another Talkspace therapist, suggested doing a pre-interview to ask questions such as, “What would our therapy look like together? And have you worked with other people in a similar situation? How were the outcomes?”

It’s generally recommended to attend a minimum of three sessions before evaluating if a therapist is or isn’t right for you.

Once you’ve had a few sessions, and you are unsure if your therapist is the right fit, Rosenblatt shared that there are quite a few factors to consider before choosing to “break up” with your therapist.

Three key questions to ask yourself before moving on

1. Am I making progress in therapy?

“If you’re not where you want to be, and you’ve brought this up to your therapist and you’ve tried something new in therapy, but nothing has changed, it might be time to consider finding a new therapist,” said Rosenblatt. Or, alternatively, if you have made incredible progress, she suggests letting your therapist know it might be time for a break.

2. What do I want more of in therapy that I’m not currently getting?

It’s common for your focus to change throughout therapy, but it’s important to work with someone qualified to support the specific needs you’d like to focus on.

“If you speak with your therapist about your needs, and your therapist cannot adequately meet them, it might be time to find a therapist who can best support you,” said Rosenblatt.

3. Is therapy in general making me feel uncomfortable, or am I feeling uncomfortable with my therapist?

As therapy can bring up some difficult memories or experiences, Rosenblatt highlighted that you’re not going to leave every session feeling better immediately. However, she also advised that it is important to distinguish between your experience in therapy versus with your therapist.

“If your therapist has said or done things that feel unprofessional, uncomfortable or demonstrate a lack of cultural competency, see if it would feel right for you to address these with your therapist and then go from there,” she recommended.

After closely examining your experience, and coming to the conclusion that you’d prefer to move on from your therapist, Tawwab said that it’s truly a matter of preference when it comes to “breaking up” and your therapist, as a professional, is prepared for your relationship to end on your terms. “Believe it or not, therapists are ghosted all the time,” she said.

“It’s a part of the culture. We know everyone won’t come back,” added Tawwab. Still, she suggests that it is helpful to give feedback to aid the therapist in understanding where things might not have aligned.

Once you’ve parted ways with your initial therapist, there are a few tips to help navigate the process of finding someone new without getting discouraged.

Rosenblatt’s best practices to keep in mind include being clear on your priorities in what you want, sourcing therapist referrals from your communities and doing your own research.

With patience and hope, many people have found amazing therapists after some trial and error, and experts concur that one bad experience shouldn’t be the end-all when it comes to taking care of your mental health.

“Meeting the right therapist is like any sort of relationship where you’re learning someone else,” said Tawwab. “If you’re in school, it’s going to be 20 people in your class and you may have one to two friends.”

“If you’re dating, every relationship won’t work out and it’s that same sort of thing,” she continued. “You keep going. Hopefully, you don’t give up on dating or making friends or any of these sort of things, so please don’t give up on finding the right therapist.”

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(OKLAHOMA CITY) — Oklahoma doctors say they are seeing a massive surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations among children — more than during any previous wave of the pandemic.

Between Jan. 9 and Jan. 15, more than 16,000 children under the age of 18 tested positive for COVID-19, making up 18.7% of all cases in the state that week, according to a weekly epidemiology and surveillance report from the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

That’s a 138% increase from the 6,700 children who contracted the virus the week before and a 566% spike from the 2,400 children who tested positive for the virus the week before Thanksgiving.

“If l look back just to two months ago — kind of October, November — that number tended to be between five and 10,” Dr. Cameron Mantor, acting chief medical officer at OU Health, told ABC News. “In the past three weeks now, we’ve just seen it continue to skyrocket.”

At Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health, more than 50 pediatric patients are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 for the first time ever — a tenfold increase from just two months ago and three times as high as last winter’s surge.

Kids of all ages have been admitted, from as young as 2 weeks old up through teenagers, according to Mantor.

He said it’s not clear whether more children have been hospitalized because the omicron variant — which is fueling the recent wave — causes more severe illness or because the number of children being infected is so high that, naturally, the hospitalization rate will rise too.

Compared to adults, though, children with COVID-19 at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital have required intensive care treatment at lower rates, he said.

About 10% of children who have been admitted to intensive care units need oxygen support or mechanical ventilation compared to 25% of adults at OU Health.

However, even though most children recover from COVID-19, this doesn’t mean they don’t suffer complications.

Mantor said more kids have been diagnosed with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, during this wave than in previous waves.

MIS-C is a condition in which different body parts can become inflamed, such as the heart, lungs and kidneys, and is often seen in children after they are diagnosed with COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Additionally, during an OU Health roundtable discussion held on Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Stephanie DeLeon, inpatient medical director at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health, said the hospital has recently seen children diagnosed with COVID encephalitis, meaning these patients have inflammation in their brains and have symptoms including altered mental states and seizures.

Health officials have stressed the importance of vaccinating children.

The weekly report from the OSDH shows that as of Jan. 8 — the latest date for which data is available — there were 32 children aged 17 and younger hospitalized statewide over the last 30 days.

Of those children, 31 were unvaccinated, including 17 children aged 5 and older who are eligible to receive vaccines.

Just one fully vaccinated child was hospitalized and no partially vaccinated children were admitted to hospitals.

“When we look at the state of Oklahoma, around 60% have had at least one vaccine dose, but the kids 5 and older who can get vaccinated, that percentage is still very small,” Mantor said.

Only 33.6% of Oklahoma children between ages 12 and 17 are fully vaccinated, according to the OSDH report. For kids aged 5 to 11, just 9% are fully vaccinated.

COVID-19 vaccines for children under age 5 have not yet been authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“It’s the same old message that we’ve been preaching for two years now that to try to prevent the transmission of the disease, both amongst our pediatric patients but also from our pediatric patients to mom and dad and to grandma and grandad, is we have to get vaccinated,” Mantor said.”The kids that haven’t been vaccinated have to get vaccinated. It’s safe, it’s effective, it works.”

He added, “It’s not perfect. People are still getting infected with the virus but their likelihood of requiring hospitalization or becoming severely ill is much, much less if you’re fully vaccinated, so vaccines are so important. We need to really continue to push that in our aged 5 and older patients.”

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