To be so tired of how people treat adults with allergies?

[T2517]

I have a severe peanut allergy, have done since toddler hood and am now 26. Over the last few years my allergy has become more of a problem than ever.

People are so selfish it actually blows my mind - there have been times when I ask nicely (I’m shy and anxious generally) if peanuts could be moved away from me because I could literally die breathing them in and I always get a horrible response. I don’t get if - I don’t do this for fun, I could literally die. I always move away from peanuts if I see them but sometimes this isn’t possible.

I am terrified that one day I will die because someone can’t be bothered to not eat peanuts. I hate flying because I always hear comments on the plane about how nobody can be that allergic to nuts etc. I am the last person to kick up a fuss and I hate asking people not to. I just don’t understand why people are so hostile about allergies?! It feels dramatic to say but sometimes it feels like people don’t care about your life. I’m not talking about it in food etc because restaurants and stuff have been super helpful I just mean airborne allergies and people not understanding.

I have to book a flight soon and I’m terrified. I don’t expect anyone to never eat peanuts again but just to understand that it isn’t easy to live with an allergy like this. I would give anything to be normal.

I remember a friend with a self-diagnosed dairy intolerance refusing to take paracetamol for a headache (because of miniscule amount of mild powder in the coating) but then going on to eat a large ice cream!

I have a self diagnosed allergy to people who are that fucking stupid.

Allergic reactions probably work on a spectrum with intolerance being mild, severe allergy....is well, life threatening.

I have intolerance to wheat, non life threatening (chronic sinusitis, mild asthma, runny nose and itchy mouth) allergies to pet hair, mould, all types of pollen and dust. I have severe reaction to many fruits and I have suffered anaphylaxis when someone ignored me and proceeded to 'peel' an orange in the same room. But I can eat marmalade because the orange is cooked.

I've had colleagues put oranges in front of me, people ignore and start peeling them, one even asked me to peel an orange for one of the kids I work with. My feeling at the time was geez you must really hate me! The truth is that people rarely listen even when they appear to be listening, and even more rarely remember anything that isn't important to them. Few people have witnessed anaphylaxis, fewer still have suffered it. I think faddy diets and the cult of "food intolerance" has made most people assume you're are being precious.

"If you can eat butter you don't have an actual dairy allergy. You might have had one in the past, you might have a mild intolerance. You do not have a real allergy."

This is nonsense.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4341340/

My DD has a properly diagnosed egg allergy, but she can eat well cooked egg in some forms. If you gave her meringue however or similarly uncooked/lightly cooked egg then she'd be violently ill, have swollen lips and come up in hives.

Twiddle bee. My asthmatic sister grew out of her food allergies (nuts wheat and eggs) then as a teenager too much egg made her vomit and gave her acne. Gp wouldn't give her an allergy test but she was under an asthma nurse who was very good and maybe based on her symptoms it was more of a intolerance/asthma thing... She just struggled with her weight with stress of exams which buts her off food... We grew up in Europe and the system was very different, she has carried a inhaler around all her life and used a nebuliser at home as a child but my cousins daughter is going through simular issues now but they won't prescribe a nebuliser, she has to go into hospital every time she has an asthma attack which isn't fun for anyone involved.... I've heard of nebulisers being prescribed for home use for more disabled children but I just don't understand why some doctors will do one thing and another won't...

I haven't been served peanuts on flights for years now - do airlines still serve them?

BA doesn't. You can possibly still buy a marathon bar on Ryanair and of course there is nothing to stop anyone buying a bag of M&Ms before boarding.

It would be extremely rare for someone to be so allergic that a fellow passenger eating M&Ms several rows away could provoke a serious reaction and tbh (and I speak as a peanut allergy sufferer) if your allergy is that severe then you probably need to act responsibly and take some preventative masures (e.g. prophylactic antihistamines) before going into any crowded and enclosed public space. There is no such thing as zero risk. I could theoretically die on a plane of peanut exposure, but in reality I am far more likely to die in a car crash driving up the motorway to the airport.

My DD has a properly diagnosed egg allergy, but she can eat well cooked egg in some forms. If you gave her meringue however or similarly uncooked/lightly cooked egg then she'd be violently ill, have swollen lips and come up in hives.

That's like me. A small bite of well cooked birthday cake with egg cooked in it - not too bad. Tolerable.
Mayonnaise or meringue, uncooked egg - instant start to shut down/drowsy/sleepy.
Eggs as they're frying in the same room as me - my eyes swell and close.
I read an article a while back,can't remember which one, that said it was something to do with the proteins in the egg changing during the cooking process.

Agree there are many people who don’t understand, or dismiss those with ‘real’ allergies. DD has a nut allergy, and has had two serious reactions. She is extremely careful and carries an epi pen, so we have become more relaxed over time.
But it is frustrating how some people bracket all allergy sufferers as being part of some self diagnosed club...oh everybody has an allergy these days...

I’ll never be able to go Thailand or probably America either as I don’t think I would be safe

We've lived in the US for 11 years. DD who is 15 has a severe peanut allergy, and all of her reactions except one have been in the fairly brief periods we've spent in the UK.

The one reaction she had in the US was to a cookie her brother bought in a bake sale. She now knows never to buy anything home made from a bake sale.

OTOH she's reacted twice in the UK to restaurant meals, despite having checked that the meals were nut free.

cady, dh is the same, we've learnt to be careful the hardway-he once had an anaphylactic reaction after someone brought some home made cupcakes into work, we didn't know that the lovely fluffy icing on them that looks like buttercream is made fluffy by raw beaten egg white! He now has an epipen .

We flew to majorca last summer with jet2 and there was an announcement on that no nuts were allowed due to an allergy and that no, nuts would be on sale either. I would contact the airline and tell them about your allergy

I bought booked some flights with easyJet 2 days ago and part of the online booking process included a box to check if any of the passengers had a nut allergy.

Check out any mask by 3M that is rated N99. I used these for years in Beijing when air pollution was terrible. They work very well for microscopic particulate matter, and should protect you on a plane. Just make sure you are sure of the fit and wear it properly.

I think also its a generational thing.. People say there werent all these allergies when l was a child etc etc which is true tbf and l don't remember having one friend or fellow pupil having a nut or peanut allergy. But there are reasons why there are so many more of these allergies these days which are nothing to do with this generation being snowflakes etc. But some people my age and older just can't see past 'we had none of these things when we were kids' and so on.

Another raw egg one, my relative was diagnosed with an egg allergy as a toddler when he opened the fridge before his parents were up and started playing with raw eggs. He was really upset and scared to have Easter eggs even though we tried explaining they aren't real eggs.

I'm allergic to mushrooms. It's a particular issue at certain times of the year because of the spores. It drives me potty that no one takes it seriously. Nuts is well known and tends to be given the necessary gravitas. People think being allergic to mushrooms is a preference.

Hope you don't mind me hijacking this thread a bit but seems how you lot have all got allergy knowledge and I am a bit new to it all still I was hoping you could help?

As already mentioned over here, DS has a severe allergy to fish (he is anaphylactic). But on Monday he had another reaction over lunch time, came out in hives all over which went down a bit once we gave him his Cetrizine. But then Tuesday morning he woke up with what looks like eczema all over his body and has a runny nose and irritated throat. Took him to the walk-in centre and Dr said looks like "allergy triggered eczema"? On her advice we gave him another dose of Cetrizine and its calmed down again.

Have any of you heard this before and anyway to treat/avoid it? Also no clue what caused it because he wasn't exposed to anything new.

Have you been out walking lately? Some garden fertilisers are made from fish, I wouldn't have any idea whether they allergens would survive the process of the fish being turned into fertilizer, but could that be a possibility?

Hi, my mum has lots of allergies to plants,could be that. It depends on what specific chemical in fish he is allergic to. Iodine is in shellfish and often causes allergies, its also in synthetic protects including some contrast media (injected in medical imaging which is my area of expertise). Might be worth discussing with another healthcare professional. Could have been anything in the meal tbh, food prepared in an area containing fish even.

Monday was really pants weather (gales and heavy rain) so there was going outside. It is also the fish protein he is allergic too. No fish in the house so couldn't have been any cross-contamination.

Maybe I will try him with all those foods again and see if he has another reaction. Off to allergy clinic again though yeah

In my experience less commen allergies (not peanuts nuts, penicillin, anaesthetic) are rarely restricted to one item, that's why in hospitals they ask do you have any allergies or asthma. They seem to change all the time in children and there was a study showing that repeat gradual exposure to an allergen in children can reduce the chances of a bad reaction. You could use Google scholar and see what the most up to date research shows. Hope your sons OK. I had allergy triggered ezcma as I child and my mum discovered it was chocolate (my ezcma improved when i was at my grannies where she had no chocolate) I'm a chocoholic now.

Op I felt stress when reading your op as I totally understand. Dd15 has always had peanut allergy and whilst not airborne reactions I still shit myself when on a plane with her as one day someone will be sitting next to her and crack open a bag of peanuts. Not everyone in this world is nice and some will be pissed off being asked not to eat them.
In a positive note dd is lucky in that she has been accepted into the Cambridge hospital imunotherapy course. It doesn't cure you but ultimately you end up able to tolerate I think 5 peanuts so you would at least be protected from cross contamination. It has had a fantastic success rate with a view to one day it will hopefully be available on the NHS. This course is only for children but I would have thought that there may be other places that may do similar for adults?

Embracethechaos thank you, I'll take a look. Fish is pretty common though 1 in 8 people have it? Also Dr did advise we don't try and exposure DS to any form of fish though for risk of another anaphylactic shock.

My allergies have changed throughout my life and a few seem to have been brought on by hormonal changes.
I am allergic to penicillin now. I had it a few times before with no issues, then bam. I can pinpoint it to having 2 lots of antibiotics at the same time then another lot 2 weeks later. I haven't taken any antibiotics for 10 years now. I find the research about gut bacteria and allergies/intolerences facinating and how antibiotics affect them.

Twittlebee...our daughter has had many episodes of allergic eczema, just as you describe. She is also allergic to a range of pollens, and is currently suffering quite badly. Terrible constant rhinitis, large areas of very inflamed eczema, and swollen red eyes...it’s been three weeks now and she’s decidedly miserable. Her Blood IgE and RAST levels are extremely high, so we are told this can be typical. Cross pollen issues can also make it worse some years than others. Unfortunately none of the antihistamines are helping much, it’s terrible how badly they can be affected by this. Oh it’s just hay fever...is a common comment on that score!