To wonder where the allergies go?

[Defnotsupergirl]

To start off I'm not saying there are not some very serious, life threatening allergies out there.

My wondering is why you don't come across more adults with these allergies. I work directly with 40 odd adults i.e. We share a fridge and working space etc. none of them have any allergies that I know of apart from one lady who has coeliac disease - and I'm assuming I would know if others did due to having to be careful about birthday cakes, only using certain parts of the fridge etc. no one refused cake or didn't use the fridge.

Up till four years ago I work with another group of people except about 80 of them and none had any known allergy.
None of my friends or acquaintances have ever said they have allergy problems despite me cooking for them and checking in many cases

If you compare with friends DCs school, five of the reception children in a class of 22 have some form of supposed food allergy. Apparently this is a reoccurring theme throughout the school.

Is it that people grow out of these allergies or is it the imagination of over careful parents who see an allergy every time their child vomits after a meal.

AIBU to suggest that there are not as many allergies around as is thought and that it is parents who are quick to blame simple bugs on allergies?

Please note - I again realise there are some life threatening allergies that exist and are a huge problem. This is for the other ones.

As a child I had very bad hay fever and was very allergic to some animals, especially guinea pigs, I also had atopic eczema until I was about 30. They have all gone away now and apart from a little sniffle when the tree pollen starts my years of itchy eyes, blisters and a boated face have come to an end. I think many people grow out of them over time, but my first pregnancy put a total stop to the eczema :)

Leaping I can tell you that for me, it's a very distinct sensation of soreness in my throat, and that I have previously described it as dryness. I recognise it immediately, but I don't know how to describe how different it feels from a viral sore throat.

So, here's an excerpt from one of my rants pre-A&E visit.

"They say fruit contains water, and keeps you hydrated it. It even looks moist. So why does it feel so dry when it goes down? It makes no sense! I cannot believe fresh fruit would ever stave off dehydration!"

Ha - my Grannie was an apple-pusher too Tilly. Tbh, I have so many mild reactions I'm never sure what's caused them.

Like MaryWestmacott I choose to eat things that give me reactions, because they're tasty and I find the reactions pretty liveable with.
Honey makes my lips swell a bit, tomatoes definitely give me tongue sores, mango makes me sick, but apart from that I find it very difficult to narrow down the culprits. I'm not great at putting two and two together. Having read a few more pages of OAS info tho, I'm now realising I react a bit to bananas too, but I doubt I'll cut them out of my diet.
If DS were to show symptoms I'd take it far more seriously, but not so much for myself.

I'm allergic to tomatoes, have ended up in hospital twice with it, but as a child I referred to it as getting a 'big tongue' my mouth was swelling up but it wasn't associated with allergies then(am 39).
I don't think it would have occurred to my mother to avoid tomatoes or to mention it to anyone else, it was considered one of those things. It has got much better now , and strangely although I am allergic I don't consider myself that way. I also don't have many tomatoes.

I am intrigued at the research into hookworms, and frustrated that the progress is so slow when it comes to medical testing, especially as I am collecting more and more allergies and would like to be able to rid myself of at least a few of the more annoying ones such as penicillin and animal fur.

I am almost tempted to go somewhere where hookworm infestation is common and try to get myself a colony - the researchers believe that there is a symbiotic relationship whereby having a hookworm living in your gut actually suppresses the inappropriate histamine response which causes anaphylaxis.

OP - trust me when I say that there is a VERY limited list of reasons that I would choose to eat eggs harvested from another human's poo, but given that I am typing this with cracked and bleeding fingers from another outbreak of eczema on my hands, I think those of us living with allergies probably aren't just being melodramatic.

I have severe allergies which necessitate an epi-pen, (one of which I found out about when I had a reaction whilst pregnant - I certainly wouldn't wish that on anyone) less severe ones which can be treated with intravenous piriton and ones that I barely think about because they 'only' cause painful and unsightly eczema and itching of my mouth and lips. But all are very much real, diagnosed by specialist professionals, and unfortunately unlikely to be grown out of now that I am in my mid 30's.

I think it's most likely that your colleagues aren't sharing their medical histories with you rather than that you don't work with anyone with allergies. Knowing that I might have passed them on to my son makes me really hope that treatment and management is more effective and less scary by the time he is older, just in case he suffers from any of the same ones I do. Encountering attitudes such as yours just make it that bit harder and more embarrassing to have allergies (and yes, I know I shouldn't be embarrassed about them, but I am) so I hope that the stories here go some way towards convincing you that they are really nothing to be taken lightly or 'explained away'.

SackAndCrack I feel a big part to blame is vaccinations

The world is interesting and complicated, and I certainly don't feel qualified to say there's no connection. But vaccinations are innocent regarding my allergies anyway, because I didn't have any until I was 21, post allergies beginning to make themselves recognisable!

Something else needs punching regarding my inconveniences!

Really interesting about OAS after I had DD I started getting hay fever in the summer and also itchy mouth and lips and coughing after eating melon and celery. Annoying because I love them both!

Op, I think we're quite a long way from knowing how to avoid having children with allergies.

I have 2DC. One has no allergies at all. The other has a long list of food allergies, including life threatening allergies. I did exactly the same with both of them.

When you have a child with serious allergies, the ignorance on the subject (& I include some doctors here) is quite upsetting.

more widely known and more easily tested now. I think people are less likely to speak about them as an adult also.

There are some bizarre allergies out there tbh, my friends little boy at 5yrs had an anaphylactic episode whilst playing ball outside with a dog, they later found out he was allergic to something in the dogs saliva!!

Plenty of mud pies in my 70's childhood, OP. Didn't stop my brother's face swelling up when he ate strawberries. Doesn't stop my throat from burning and itching if I eat kiwi fruit.

A lot of allergies do change throughout life. A child who has hayfever, for example, may not become an adult with hayfever, and vice versa. My own allergies come and go. I developed a nickel allergy in my 30s, after having no problems of the sort, previously.

thanks all - i think we'll just keep a watching eye on her and make mental notes when she eats the other things associated with melon.

So OP...

Do you still think that the five children in the class of 22 have a supposed allergy?

Or perhaps are you bit better informed now?

I grew out of my egg allergy, it wasn't a mild reaction either having stopped breathing twice because I had breast milk that had egg in it via mum eating it
Am intolerant to pineapple (only fresh stuff) as it makes my mouth/tongue itch but I don't need to avoid it in the work fridge, just eating it

Thanks to everyone who has replied. Even the person who called me a judgemental idiot! You have given me a lot of food for thought and I am going off to read up on all of this. It has been very helpful people sharing their personal experience.

This certainly wasn't meant to inflame anyone or belittle their personal experience, after all, I'm asking the question as some of the media has told me that allergies aren't as frequent as is suggested and the rate of allergy at my friends DCs school seemed high but this does not seem to be the case.

There seems to be lots of possibilities of cause but I really didn't realise there was also so much adult onset allergy!

I am an adult with an allergy to a food which is very common, nuts!! I had lots of other allergies as a child, some so severe I spent a lot of my early years in hospital!
You'd never say no though! My diet as a young child was very very restricted, but now the only thing I have to avoid is nuts.
YABU to suggest parents make this up, allergies are more common in children.

TillyTell I didnt say vaccinations are to blame for allergies full stop. I meant that I think they may to be blame for allergies rapid growth.

I would explain the 'why so many allergies now and not so many 20 years ago.

Something has happened to cause the rapid incline, the severity and the multiple allergies in an individual.

What is it though.

Also as Mumsnet is probably a unique resource in that many people from all walks of life take part I wondered if there was a reoccurring theme that started their allergy problem off. It seems not but, well, you never know something might have been said and people suddenly go, ooooh yes, that's when it happened for me too?

Oops I meant to say 'you'd never say now though'

surromum you are actually quite wrong. It isnt because they a widely known, and allergy testing is still pretty pony.

Also, allergy to an animals saliva is actually very common and not new either.

Most people allergic to cats, arent allergic to their fur but the cats saliva on their fur.

SackAndCrack

I understand; I simply thought it was interesting that my accidental status as a control group suggests that there's definitely some other dastardly allergy-causing factor at work, and worth mentioning. I didn't think you were thinking it was just vaccinations.

I am atopic, have asthma, eczema and handover and I get oral allergy syndrome to peanuts, still eat them tho!

I am allergic to grass, hay, straw, any fury animals etc. My allergies have got worse with each pregnancy and as I have got older. Luckily all five madthings are fine.

Likeaninjanow.
I understand where you are coming from. My family is a bit like this too.

If you dont mind me asking? Was one born a different way to the other.
Is one perhaps more like one side of the family and one like the other? etc.

I finally went to the clinic about my nut allergy when I was in my early 20s after I had quite a serious attack on a night out for my birthday. My mum asked why allergies were around in the younger generations a lot more and the allergy specialist said that it was a number of things but one of the main causes was the nipple creams that BF mothers used when we were younger used to contain peanut oil...

As well as the "traditional" allergies that cause hives, vomiting or anaphylaxis there are also children who are on gluten free/dairy free etc diets to help with things like autism or adhd.

I am 50 and have become allergic to honey for no apparent reason in the last few years. The strange thing about allergies is that they do come and go, and the ones that are permanent can subside for ages. DH is allergic to all sorts of dander, and at one time it was a real pain. He does seem to have grown out of it to an extent now he's 50 though .

To my mind, it's a wonder that more people aren't allergic given the amount of chemicals and pollutants in our lives. It's pretty amazing what our bodies can learn to tolerate.