Someone on my friends list might appreciate this

[andrewducker]

(Anyone know what percentage are actually allergic?)

Comments

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

0.06% in the general population, apparently.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Presumably it should be zero as those who find they have a fatal peanut allergy don't tend to last long after the first peanut....

[autopope.livejournal.com]

For some reason, nuts and seafood seem to be particularly likely to trigger allergies that result in systemic anaphylaxis, which can be rapidly fatal if untreated. So the prevalence of nut allergies is low, but the combined morbidity/mortality figures are disproportionately high compared to other allergies.

(When I was a wee thing I was allergic to cows milk; it triggered serious eczema attacks. Luckily the allergy wore off, and the atopic eczema I was left with finally went away after I turned 40.)

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Allergies are triggered by exposure. The first peanut rarely causes serious illness -- but the second is another matter.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

That's the wonder of modern medicine ... even if you have a severe allergic reaction there are things like epipens to keep you alive. One of my friends has a daughter who is severely peanut allergic and her teachers and school mates are all made very aware of it ... and still she went bowling with the school, and the previous user of the bowling ball had been eating peanuts and there was enough transfer from the ball to her fingers to, I presume, her mouth (possibly eating chips *not* cooked in ground nut oil!) that she collapsed and if the teacher hadn't got the epipen, well, a tragedy would likely have occurred. eek.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

A lot of parents jump at explanations and then cut out a foodstuff. Does this mean that mildly alergic children don't habituate?

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Humph. Peanut allergy sufferers have it comparatively easy; it's a high-profile allergy, and manufacturers are not only good at labelling products containing peanuts, they're also good at reconsidering whether the products need to contain peanuts in the first place, and at providing peanut-free alternatives.

Try finding an egg-free sandwich to feed to a hungry, egg-allergic toddler in a motorway service station, and I'll show you both the meaning of futility, and a very hungry and grumpy toddler.

Also, wtf? Why does a fecking salami and mozzarella panini need to contain mayonnaise?

"Free-from" sections in supermarkets are also pretty poor; great if you have nut allergies, coeliac, or dairy allergies, bad if you're trying to avoid egg.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Having had to adjust what I eat and buy due to having an inquisitive toddler with an egg allergy, there are few things that make me as angry as a child with a specious parent-diagnosed food 'intolerance', and a parent with a plan for an exclusion diet that they haven't bothered discussing with their GP.

Yes!

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Agree absolutely.

So, what is the actual medical advice on the egg alergy? Will it last forever? Can "they" do something about it...?

Re: Yes!

[nmg.livejournal.com]

It's looking good. We had the first round of food trials (cooked egg in fairy cakes) almost two months ago and he showed no reaction, so we're now giving him things that have egg as cooked ingredient, but we're holding off on egg alone (and things like mayonnaise) until the next food challenge in the new year.

Re: Yes!

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Strangely, the self-diagnosers tend to forsee an entire lifetime of a "special" diet.

Re: Yes!

[andrewducker]

Well, some stuff does seem to get worse as it goes along - and things like coeliac and gluten intolerances don't go away with age, so far as I understand.

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

Having a soy allergy in the early part of this decade was just about the opposite of fun. If it came in a package it was pretty much guaranteed to made me break out in hives. Pretzels was pretty much the only safe bet for snack food.

People thought I was full of crap until I started predicting what form of soy was in the food they were feeding me by where the reaction was and making them check packages to verify it. Soy lecithin only made my nose itch, everything else made my neck, back, and shoulders heat up like a sunburn and if it was really bad I would break out in tiny hives. Nowadays a lot of things are marked for soy allergies, but back then people thought I was crazy.

Happily this has since attenuated as is was stress and quitting smoking induced (I was also mildly allergic to peanuts). It's funny looking at two allergy tests and seeing something like 15 things indicated as likely mild allergies on one and absolutely zero allergies indicated five years later.

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

Having a soy allergy in the early part of this decade was just about the opposite of fun. If it came in a package it was pretty much guaranteed to made me break out in hives. Pretzels was pretty much the only safe bet for snack food.

People thought I was full of crap until I started predicting what form of soy was in the food they were feeding me by where the reaction was and making them check packages to verify it. Soy lecithin only made my nose itch, everything else made my neck, back, and shoulders heat up like a sunburn and if it was really bad I would break out in tiny hives. Nowadays a lot of things are marked for soy allergies, but back then people thought I was crazy.

Happily this has since attenuated as is was stress and quitting smoking induced (I was also mildly allergic to peanuts). It's funny looking at two allergy tests and seeing something like 15 things indicated as likely mild allergies on one and absolutely zero allergies indicated five years later.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

My spouse has a strong egg intolerance. Anything more than traces of it in her food cause fairly spectacular gastrointestinal nastiness. I feel your pain, and one-up it: airport eating is near-as-dammit impossible while travelling (she's also vegetarian, and frequently the only veggie option uses egg mayo instead of margarine to hold the sandwiches together).