<p>Around 80% are just imagined. Everyone needs to feel so special.</p>
<p>[NYT:</a> Doubt cast on many food allergies - Allergies and asthma- msnbc.com](<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37104569/ns/health-allergies_and_asthma/]NYT:”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37104569/ns/health-allergies_and_asthma/)</p>
<p>I think like many common diseases or disorders, food allergies are very real and very over-diagnosed. I doubt it’s from a need to feel special, just fear. People have died from eating peanuts! So when a mother watches her son have a mild reaction to peanut butter, paranoia sets in and the food allergy diagnosis is checked off. It’s like ADD and ADHD. They’re probably very real issues, but they’re overdiagnosed. If 8 year old junior can’t sit still for his science test, the diagnosis is ADHD, not a desire to go outside and play.</p>
<p>* 8 year old junior can’t sit still for his science test, the diagnosis is ADHD, not a desire to go outside and play.*</p>
<p>So they give them meds and cut recess.
:(</p>
<p>Antibodies to some foods, like peanuts, are much more likely to produce a reaction than ones to other foods, like wheat or corn or rice.</p>
<p>Um are they taking this into consideration?
[Cornell</a> University Department of Animal Science](<a href=“http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/toxicagents/aflatoxin/aflatoxin.html]Cornell”>Cornell University Department of Animal Science)</p>
<p>If you read on into the article, you see that one issue is just loose language–people say they are “allergic” to foods when they are just intolerant of them, or sensitive to them. That doesn’t mean that their reactions aren’t real-just that they are different from allergic reactions. Lactose intolerance, for example, is real, and can make a person feel bad–it’s just not the same as a life-threatening allergy. I have a kid with a nut allergy, and there is no question that it’s real–both testing and experience have shown it. It didn’t make us feel special when we had to take him to the emergency room.</p>
<p>When you ask a waiter if the food has nuts, he pays more attention if you say you have a *food allergy *than if you say you have a sensitivity. </p>
<p>According to the allergist, I am not allergic to nuts. It’s just that when I have even tiny quantites of nuts, I get these large painful bleeding sores in my mouth and throat. Isn’t it okay if I say I’m allergic?</p>
<p>Similarly, as a nurse, I’ve come across a lot of people who believe they are allergic to certain drugs. But when you investigate, you often find that they just experience typical side effects of the medicine, not an allergic reaction. I generally don’t 't try to convince them they are not allergic as there is usually another alternative which doesn’t cause those particular side effects-and once someone has decided they are allergic to something, they usually remain convinced of it no matter what you say.</p>
<p>If I eat a certain thing, I could die. It isn’t an allergy; it’s an intolerance.</p>
<p>There is a lot of subjectivity in diagnosis and a wide spectrum of responses. So this study should not be taken as definitive, but as a contribution to on-going study.</p>
<p>Of course, even authors of a study like to feel ‘special’.</p>
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<p>"According to the allergist, I am not allergic to nuts. It’s just that when I have even tiny quantites of nuts, I get these large painful bleeding sores in my mouth and throat. Isn’t it okay if I say I’m allergic? "</p>
<p>Might be “Oral Allergy Syndrome”.
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_allergy_syndrome[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_allergy_syndrome</a></p>
<p>My son has that. He has “real” allergies as well, but because they, and the oral allergy thing is not life threatening, we are cautious, but let him suffer through it at times, usually by his choice. For example, sometimes something (strawberries, lemonade, peaches) looks SO good, he eats it, then suffers the consequences. The literature rarely describes the blistering or sluffing off of the oral mucosa he gets (his doesn’t bleed), but I think I’ve read it somewhere.</p>
<p>Another mom of a kid with “oral allergy syndrome”.
For years I did not believe the poor guy that his entire mouth itchess after he eats an apple! For years! Till one day I saw his swollen lips after eating some fruit.</p>
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<p>Did we read the same article? As I recall, about 50% did not have allergies that they thought they had. </p>
<p>Nothing to do with being imagined or feeling special. As the article explains, when you read it, </p>
<p>a. what we loosely called ‘allergy’ may not be (since it doesn’t involve the immune system), but instead may be a food intolerance.
b. Some people had allergies but outgrew them (and how would they know?).
c. Some tests are not that accurate and/or doctors are reluctant to conduct them. </p>
<p>And surely some people experienced a bad association with a particular food a few times, and came to avoid it, finding it easier to just think of it as ‘an allergy’ (why test it out when its often easier to avoid the offending food?).</p>
<p>For some reason, when I eat melon, my throat gets scratchy. I have no idea why but I avoid melons, not a big deal. And the last thing I gain is a sense of ‘specialness’ from this, lol. </p>
<p>Barons, do you feel special when you have something physically wrong with you? Say high BP? Glasses? Tendonitis? Why not?</p>
<p>The trouble is, the people who say they have an allergy when they don’t have one end up making it worse for people with real, life-threatening allergies. My husband is allergic to milk. Not lactose intolerant, but really, go-to-the-emergency-room-because-throat-is-closing-up allergic. People who say they are allergic to milk, but who then go ahead and eat a slice of pizza, give the impression that a milk allergy is no big deal. Then waiters or hosts, deceived by the allergy liars, won’t warn my husband if some food has a little milk, cheese or yogurt in it, and he’ll get sick.</p>
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That was an unnecessary comment. I get the point of this study, but I don’t feel the least bit special when I have an asthma attack after someone has let their cat rub all over my legs and then says, “oh, sorry, I forgot that you don’t like cats.” My son doesn’t feel the least bit special when he tries hard to avoid shellfish and then gets a severe reaction from cross-contamination after having an Italian sub.</p>
<p>“the true incidence of food allergies is only about 8 percent for children and less than 5 percent for adults, said Dr. Marc Riedl, an author of the new paper and an allergist and immunologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.Yet about 30 percent of the population believe they have food allergies.”</p>
<p>So I estimated at most about one-sixth (5% vs 30%) of those who believe they have the food allergies actually have them or rounded up to 20% to adjust for children having more.</p>
<p>Going out in any group to eat has now become a big PITA. Every third person claims some food allergy. It’s annoying and BS. When I was 25 nobody complained of them. It’s a fad.</p>
<p>I do believe that many food allergies are real.</p>
<p>However, my SIL had everyone convinced that her daughter (our niece) was allergic to a whole host of foods making it a nightmare to cook anything for them. My SIL would get very insulting if she came to your home and something was being served that her D supposedly couldn’t eat. </p>
<p>The supposed list of her food allergies was very long…all dairy, wheat, corn, nuts, etc. It was nearly impossible to have any kind of family get-together and not serve some things that her D couldn’t eat. </p>
<p>Well, it turned out that her D wasn’t allergic to ANY of these foods. It took my SIL awhile before she let the rest of us know the truth…I guess she didn’t want to admit that she had been wrong (and had put us thru food hell for no good reason). </p>
<p>My niece’s non-existent food allergies were discovered when she would go to friends’ homes (without her mom there) and eat whatever was served with no reaction.</p>
<p>So, yes, some have the need to feel special. My SIL had the need to make all of feel like her D was so special that she needed to avoid all these foods. Do you know how hard it is to have party food without any dairy, corn, or wheat products?</p>
<p>Special is not the word I would use to describe how I felt at my D’s banquet, while the awards went on and on and on and my tongue was developing wounds that looked as if they’d been slashed with a razor knife. Slightly panicked, perhaps? I’d have felt special if one of the other parents had said, “Oh, I can see you are having a problem. You go deal with it and I’ll make sure your daughter gets home safely.”</p>
<p>"For years I did not believe the poor guy that his entire mouth itchess after he eats an apple! For years! Till one day I saw his swollen lips after eating some fruit. "</p>
<p>Kelowna; I didn’t take it seriously for a long time either. We and dad are MD’s, and our kids are used to having their physical complaints minimized ( famous last words…“what does it take to get to an emergency room around here?”). One day he was SOOOO miserable, I looked, and his mouth was covered with patches that looked like a yeast infection. Oral yeast infections in a near adult can be a pretty ominous thing, and it REALLY freaked me out. Fortunaely, looks like it was only “OAS”, or what they now call “food pollen” something. </p>
<p>missypie; DISCLAIMER; My son had nothing that looks like a tongue slashed with razors…and …“This should not be construed as medical advice…blah blah blah”</p>
<p>So what should people do, barrons? Carry notarized statements from their allergists? The epi pen in the shirt pocket should be pretty good evidence.</p>
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<p>Lol. One time I overheard my daughter talking to a friend. Friend said, “you’re so lucky your Mom’s a nurse-she knows how to help you when you’re sick.” My daughter responded, "But she’s a cardiology nurse. When you complain, she says ‘Are you breathing? Do you have a pulse? Okay then, you’re fine.’ " My younger daughter will never let me forget about the time she fell down during ski lessons and I didn’t believe she was hurt. Turns out she had a broken arm. In my defense, though, she could move her arm and push back just fine against resistance, and she had complained mightily before her fall that she “didn’t need to take lessons.” Oh well. You win some, you lose some.</p>
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We all do this. There was this barbecue chicken at Buddy’s Pit…</p>
<p>I can understand the skepticism about this, because some parents do go overboard, and there may well be people who really aren’t allergic. But a cavalier attitude about this can get some people killed, especially people with severe allergies.</p>