I learned a thing! That's super interesting! My reaction might be colored by the fact that half my doctors were just "Oh well if not eating gluten makes you feel better why do you need a diagnosis?" Which is... Ya know... Douchey.
I apparently have some sort of allergy against an unidentified food that makes bumps grow on my chin. And a contact allergy against some sort of grass that makes my skin break out in hives.
It's different for Celiac, because it's not really a food allergy, but an auto-immune thing. Celiac can be tested for with a blood test while people are still eating gluten, and in the past the gold standard was a biopsy of the duodenum while you were eating gluten. These days the bloodtests are generally enough, and the biopsy is a last resort for inconclusive blood tests.
Yeah, I tested positive on blood but apparently it's 2 out of 3 of the viable tests these days (edit: according to my former doctor). They did the biopsy and managed to hit one of the only healthy part of my duodenum. Got pressured by my doctor to just 'eat gluten free and not worry about it' and so I jumped for the prometheus genetic test because honestly screw that man and his 'no you don't need a diag' bullshit. Prometheus came back positive, like highly positive. Hilariously the last time I went in to see him, even though my medical file says Celiac disease on it, he said 'well it's probably just your IBS'. BOY HOWDY WAS I MAD. but I've never actually had my wheat allergy tested and don't feel like I need it, in that case my need for protection is covered by my celiac so I can kind of just use that to cover it. Could be that it's part of the celiac, since some people do react in their mouths, but who knows!
Oh boy, I joined the land of allergy nearly two months ago after never reacting to anything at all by becoming wildly allergic to dust mites. Or more specifically, to dust mite poop. This is probably because this city is a haven for dust mites and mold. And my room is a small room in the back of the apartment that doesn't get a lot of light or ventilation... Basically I now get ridiculous welts if I get exposed for too long. By ridiculous I mean "welts fused and inflamed to bigger than my palm, covered most of my back, my hips and breasts, and spreading across arms, legs, and face". It got so bad that I basically went to the ER (my insurance covers it and I live in Peru so different health care dynamics than the USA) and got a shot of anti histamine with corticoidal steroids. HUGE relief. For my blood work, my IgE was over five times higher than the average (nearly 600 to the 100 my doctor told me was the highest in the normal range). I am currently sleeping in my living room because no matter how much we vacuumed my room I was still waking up covered in welts. I now basically change clothes at least twice a day, and take my bedsheets to air out in the sun and air every day, and I have a dehumidifier working 12 hours a day in my room. Frankly it is all worth it for not being covered in ugly, painful and itchy welts. Sadly I still can't go out in the sun, and my doc prohibited a huge number of foods for the duration. I think it is to avoid my already over sensitive system from becoming allergic to anything else? I can slowly wean into eating something while keeping an eye out for a reaction, but it takes 8 days to reach a conclusion and even that is hard because the test might be contaminated by the actual dust mites that I can't 100% avoid in this damn city. Or the damn wall to wall carpet the landlady didn't let us rip up and replace before when we were concerned. Looks like we were proven right! And I hope that is enough to make her replace the carpet area so I can live in some modicum of peace. You can tell I am a bit unhappy with the situation. But like, for the moment I can't have anything citric (Lime! I love lime juice! Why no tomatoes? I can't chocolate! SO MANY THINGS), and the limitation in my diet has made me gain weight and also get stressed overall. Meh.
@Raire Holy shit My sister has dust allergies and she's undergoing immunotherapy for it, and one time the nurse gave her the wrong dosage (.001 instead of .0001 or something like that). She wound up going to ER as a result, and her reaction was nowhere near as bad as that.
I feel much better for feeling so miserable and desperate on the days I toughed it out because it really isn't good to take corticoidals for a long stretch of time. I actually went and filled my parent's bath tub with cold water and lay there for an hour for relief. Fun fact: I probably have developed an allergy to a fungus of some type since there are so many kinds here, but the blood test is the "American" and only tested for two fungi common in the USA and not... From here. Since it all boils down to "avoid dust and dark rooms and humid areas" which are also where dust mites proliferate, it doesn't matter much since I'm avoiding those already.
a lot of cheeses are almost entirely lactose free. Thank the gods for that. Also I am undiagnosed for most of my allergies but my family history and knowledge fo what my body reacts to produces the following list: Pollen Cats all gluten based taste enhancers (it's a relatively mild reaction for me but my dad has real trouble. With me it just gives me ugly breakouts after i get over the amount my body can barely handle) some dogs maybe? Specifically Birch and Willow pollen, through that known but mild reactions/caution regarding green apples, hazelnut, soy, kiwi and a few other things. (it's a cross allergic family!!) I'm like super mildly allergic to peanuts I guess? it prickles in my mouth so I avoid them lol Might be slightly allergic to milk because i still get digestive trouble from milk products that are 100% lactose free, but -shrug- idek maybe i should get tested at some point but i just avoid whatever is causing me trouble.
I haven't found any food or medication allergies, yay! I do get hives from neem oil, which sucks because it's a really good thing you ca use as an organic insecticide, but I'm scared to use it. But the thing that really gets me is... I get terrible hay fever when exposed to dandelion pollen. Fucking dandelions. I'm so upset about this because they're such useful plants, you can make the flowers into wine, roast the roots for a coffee alternative, the leaves are great salad greens, and they're early and prolific pollen and nectar sources for pollinators, and other grazing animals love them. So of course my body hates them. Fuck you, you defective meat suit. Luckily, it really only flares up if I get a face full of pollen. Like literally they get thrown in my face (had a kid who didn't believe I was allergic to them actually do that in grade school once. They felt so bad when the nurses had to send me home because I could even see my eyes were burning, itching and watering so much, lol). I'm thinking of trying to cultivate a patch of them in my backyard meadow somewhere a ways back from the house. That way I can still make use of them while minimizing exposure.
Dandelion tangent: you can also make a ridiculously sweet jelly from the flowers, if that's your jam ;D Being allergic to such a widespread plant must suck tho, glad to hear it's not too severe D:
The reaction itself can get horrendous if its a big enough dose. Like, oh god, oh god I want to rip my face off, end this suffering levels. But as long as I'm not out right sniffing them its usually just having a bit of a sniffle for the first part of the season. Edit: bless you for that pun.
I have a ton of respiratory allergies and skin sensitivies, such that every couple years, when spring is particularly bad and I over-sensitized due to pollen, my body starts breaking out in response to any body products I'm using at the time and I have to switch shampoo/deodorant/etc again. But the ones that really bug me are the later-life food allergies I've started developing, because they're all reactions to foods I really like! No more cashews or pistachios, no more uncooked red tomatoes, and, worse yet, I'm starting to get the hives around the mouth that's the first warning sign whenever I eat strawberries.... :( Body, please, not the strawberries too.
yo, if you're having problems w bath/shower stuff, particularly body washes and soaps, there are things you can do to help mitigate symptoms (aka this is what I've learned from trial and error after years of being allergic to grass) avoid anything w sulfates, as they are the devil and will fuck up skin that's already sensitive from allergies try using shampoo as body wash- much gentler, but still gets you clean dr bronner's soaps are fantastic for sensitive skin. you can get them online or at whole foods (probs cheaper online even w shipping bc otherwise whole foods yuppie markup) lush has fantastic stuff- fresh farmacy is a calamine skin cleanser, so it's fantastic for when you're breaking out in hives, and honey I washed the kids is a rly gentle honey soap
Dr.Bronner's soaps are fucking great all around. You can wash out skunk spray with them. I know this from a friend's personal experience with his dogs encountering a skunk...on a road trip with still hundreds of miles left.
I'm allergic to anything that sheds fur. Not just the fur itself, but also their saliva. If something licks my hands I'm usually fine, but if they get sensitive skin like my wrists, arms, face, neck... basically anything that isn't my hands, I'll break out. If I sit for too long on a couch a dog likes to spend its time on - even if it's been vacuumed so there's no fur - I'll start feeling asthmatic (wheezing) and have to move. Horses I seem to be especially allergic to. Just touching them seems to make my skin break out in red itchy patches, and last night I walked into the horse barn at the fair and had to turn around and walk straight back out before seeing a single horse because my throat was threatening to close up - and it didn't even smell of animals! I'm less allergic to baby animals. Neither their fur or their saliva seems to bother me much. Marino cherries make the inside of my lips swell up and itch, but I think that's my only food allergy, although I do have pretty severe aversions to eggs and peanuts. I used to throw up when I was made to eat either of them. At some point my mom found out it's common for asthmatics to be allergic to eggs and peanuts so she stopped trying to get me eat to them even though it wasn't an allergy. I'm not as bad now. While I still find the texture and taste of eggs repulsive, and peanuts to be absolutely disgusting, if I somehow manage to eat some by mistake I can keep it down. Well, I've eaten peanut by mistake but usually I know about the egg before I put it in my mouth and am doing it to be polite. I won't eat peanuts, even to be polite.
I'm allergic to cats and always have been. Unfortunately, I've also had cats around most of my life. It's a moderate allergy now (mostly, extremely itchy eyes and mouth), but it used to cause terrible sinus and breathing problems. I'm more allergic to some cats than I am to others. I'm also inexplicably allergic to asparagus, and apparently, only asparagus. It's a fairly severe allergy (causes breathing problems), but also easy to avoid, so, hey, there's that.
I'm allergic to the cold. Not even kidding. Break out in hives, throat starts closing up, everything itches forever.
