What IS it with all these allergies?

[BlooDeBloop]

Just back in the UK after a decade of life in the EU and find the UK is full of people with allergies. Kids school has banned nuts. The numbers of adults I've met with gluten/coeliac disease, lactose intolerance, nut allergy etc is incredible. There was that terribly sad case of the teenage dying in London from eating a milk product. I reckon maybe as much as 10% of adults I've been meeting have some kind of complaint. What the hell is going on in the UK?

I wondered if it was something to do with have IV antibiotics whilst in labour - going along the same lines as gut flora/ bacteria having something to do with allergies. My son has cows milk protein and egg allergy. However, when he was first tested he was allergic to soya, wheat, peanuts, fish, almond - to name the ones I can remember - weaning was fun. But over the years he has lost all but the milk and egg allergy. I wonder if that corresponds with building up his gut flora over time? Who knows!!!

Dunno. My DD has but allergies. I ate a shit ton of peanut butter on toast during my pregnancy and probably a lot of fruit and nut chocolate.

I exclusively breast fed until she was a year old so no sterilising from bottles etc.

No history (that we know of) of any nut allergies in the family on both sides.

My theory is to do with gut health because we were both out on a course of IV antibiotics for a few days as we both had a fever post (vaginal) birth.

How many other children with food allergies were given antibiotics straight after birth or very early on?

For time ref DD is 12.

NUT FFS!

My Ds was diagnosed with eczema at 3 months old, he hadn't had time to get dirty and had only ever had breastmilk, now as a 25 year old he has eczema and a horrible problem where if he gets suddenly hot, or cold he has an allergic reaction when resulted in a trip with blue lights to the A&E due to his face, mouth, toungue swelling from a glass of cold water on a hot day. He grew up as a grubby outdoor kid who played in mud and played sports, so no connection to being too clean.
I have Coeliacs since last year, probably had it for years as it takes ages to diagnose, turns out 1 in 100 people have it. Probably more seeing it takes so long to figure out, not all of us have bowel symptoms.
I can see how before people got dianosed they just died earlier, Coeliacs can lead to stomach cancer and other problems. For me it was damaging my liver, so without going gluten free I'd eventually have permanent liver damage and probably get finished off that way.
I think nut allergies and Dairy allergies chances are would have died from anaphylactic shock only no one would have known why.

DS had allergies to milk, eggs and a soya intolerance that became apparent at the start of weaning. Fortunately he outgrew them in the toddler years. When he weaned back onto them, my IBS which had had a really good phase worsened. I describe myself as having a low tolerance to certain foods as I can tolerate moderate amounts of some forms of foods. Being careful about what I eat means my digestive system is far less anti-social than it once was, especially as many of my triggers are commonly found at social events.

There is a long family history of dodgy digestive systems, DS making the 5th generation in a row that I know of. I suspect intolerances have been rife through the family, just never identified.

My father was a "failiure to thrive" as an infant. A lot of health and development issues would have glossed over and been uninvestigated in previous generations. A lot of children would have died either directly, from being weakened or by other conditions.

I suspect that also, our environments and diets have changed quicker than our systems can adapt. Issues like soya intolerance wouldn't have been an issue until comparatively recently. (I suspect that gluten/ wheat get a lot of blame for soya as they are often present together. I realised as I'm fine with the seeded loaves that DS could eat, but notice the effects if I regularly eat most breads/ cakes)

I went on a first aid course and the person running it said awareness has improved massively in recent years, so people in the past whose death was put down to asthma attacks may actually have had severe allergic reactions but this wasnt known at the time

That’s very interesting. I always had a “ dodgy tummy “ from childhood and when I was at university I developed quite bad asthma. This got progressively worse despite taking inhalers and sometimes oral steroids ( which are very bad for you ). I was admitted to hospital several times and once I even cracked a rib coughing.

I had constant headaches from coughing and was embarrassed to go anywhere quiet like the cinema or a concert, in case I started coughing or wheezing - people get very annoyed at you. I couldn’t go out to a pub or restaurant for most of my life because of second hand smoke.

Then in my 40s I discovered that I was intolerant to gluten. Cutting this out has completely cured all my gut problems and my asthma ( although technically I am just asymptomatic ). That , and the smoking ban, has changed my life.

I’m confused re the thyroid influence. I have congenital hypothyroidism picked up at 6 weeks old. I was born in the highlands and the Guthrie test as it was then called wasn’t routinely done so I was lucky my hv picked it up due to my symptoms. (@6 weeks so lucky to be well, don’t have a thyroid at all)

I’ve had 4 nearby pregnancies and 3 of 4 healthy kids youngest exclusively bf no bottles and weaned late has multiple allergies, eczema, asthma and poss asd, he’s gluten free also. I’m not sure why our kids become intolerant or allergic, but it’s quite scary.

We see a private dermatologist and his theory is that the eczema creates the allergy rather than the eczema is a side effect of an allergy;
I.e you have an atopic condition and there is inflamed skin with lot of immune factors around this skin, it weeps and is bleeding and food allergens get into the skin she. Eating or touching food which the immune cells (already there due to inflamed eczema) become sensitised over time to. We treated the eczema very aggressively and bar one or two inflamed spots don’t need any creams now (hospital wanted wet wraps and all sorts but we’ve managed to clear it without all that)

I think given the size of the increase in allergies it is probably helpful to examine simply everything that has changed since our grandparents’ generation and wonder if it could contribute. For example I am really distrustful of wheat having read it can be sprayed with glysophate (very toxic ) just before harvest to dry the crop out . This link explains it better
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/ban-weed-killer-glyphosate-sprayed-on-wheat-just-before-it-is-harvested

I do also wonder about diminishing gut health contributing too (even animals we eat are routinely given antibiotics but I know nothing about this )

and certain genes making some people more vulnerable I wonder. All quite interesting but worrying as I hate having a restricted diet and as a child I never reacted to some foods the way I strongly do now

Because severe allergies killed years ago. Might not have known the cause. Diets weren’t as varied too.. I can’t remember eating nuts unless they were in Nutella until I was a teenager, we were raised on simple (fairly local) food.. allergens being mostly egg, dairy, tomato and gluten. Not half as broad of a range of food or preservatives.

And as pps have said elders just “had a dodgy gut” after dairy etc so put it down as too much too rich or off. Obviously that’s more an intolerance but now you wouldn’t eat something that made you feel crap.. maybe (looks at the chocolate bar next to my lactose intolerant arse).

Ds has multiple food allergies mainly dairy (I suspect intolerance as there’s 4 gens, three diagnosed as lactose intolerant) and fruit allergies.. while pregnant with him I was mostly vegan and lived on 80% fruit (I couldn’t stomach meat or anything hot until 29weeks and then it was odd small bits).

They’re also not mild allergies which I’ve seen people with loads of some that don’t seem to cause an actual reaction (or dp who told me he was allergic to peas/onions and had me on a mad mission avoiding them until I met his DM who told me it as a load of crap)

We’re also not super sterile.. I grew up on farms, ds puts everything in his mouth and has been licked by the dogs.. pretty much as unclean as a 6month old can get without me rolling him outside like a mad woman

I reckon other environmental toxins should be investigated too eg plastics -
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7481519/PLASTICS-everyday-products-yogurt-cups-coffee-cup-lids-contain-TOXIC-chemicals.html#article-7481519

Slight digression but Coeliacs is different from other allergies, and is more intolerance. It has genetic associations and Something like 1:200 Irish affected, so you are more likely to see it in uK than say southern Europe.

Neither coeliacs or lactose intolerance are allergies in any way.