Most food "allergies" not real

[Shrinkrap]

<p>^ not sure what you are getting at, but I am not suggesting a cavalier attitude. i am saying the difference between my sons problems, and say, a nut allergy, he makes an informed decision to eat fruit, knowing he will suffer, but that he will survive. This happened on sunday, at my mothers day dinner out. We all ordered a lemonade, but when it came, and we realized it might have strawberries in it, I cautioned him about drinking it, reminding him about what would follow. He tried to suck it WAY back through a straw so it wouldn’t touch his mouth… and couldn’t taste it. I wouldn’t have given him that choice when he was younger, or if he had a peanut allergy. </p>

<p>I DO dread hearing all the complaining though, and feel it would be awful to have to worry about eating fruit, especially when it’s growing all around you. Apparently 9 percent with OAS or food pollen syndrome will have a more severe or systemic reaction, and it is believed to be the most common “food allergy” in adults.</p>

<p><a href=“UpToDate”>UpToDate;

<p>Oh, and I certainly understand a lot of people have to live with restrictions.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>I find that I can eat certain foods- if I eat them* organically grown*, than if I eat them au pesticide.
Carrots for example cause intense itching and even swelling of mucous membranes- organic they are fine.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>I meant cavalier attitudes about serious allergies–as in, not believing that they are real are are really “that bad.” That can get people killed. We’ve observed some wait staff in restaurants who still don’t get it, although most do these days.</p>

[Treetopleaf]

<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>Well, if there’s any justice in the world, you’ll develop some severe allergies, sensitivities, whatever you want to call them, and you’ll suffer as other “PITAs” suffer. Come back and tell us how special you feel!</p>

<p>People act as though the world never changes. If people increasingly complain of something it MUST be because they’re screwed up mentally. But we continue to pollute the earth and maybe it is true that we, the highest animal on the food chain, are showing the ill effects from eating, breathing and drinking polluted things over several generations.</p>

[barrons]

<p>Well at 60 I don’t think there is much chance of that. If you think the US is polluted now you should have been here circa 1955. We brought a change of clothes when we went to NYC because you would be black with soot before dinner time. Everything today is cleaner and generally safer yet people are becoming weaker. It’s mostly in the head.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>The point is, people claim they have allergies when they don’t. I’m perfectly willing to accommodate someone who actually does have an allergy, but some nutcases claim they’re “allergic” to this, that and the other when they’re not.</p>

[barrons]

<p>Exactly. In the medical office where my wife works they are running into the same thing–people with long lists of supposed medical allergies. She has been in the business for about 35 years and never seen such stuff until the last few years. Most also have extensive food “allergies”.</p>

[tom1944]

<p>barrons - I have severe food allergies to chocolate, beer, ice cream and all products made with sugar and flour. Every time I eat any of these things I get severe abdominal swelling.</p>

[Treetopleaf]

<p>“Everything today is cleaner and generally safer yet people are becoming weaker.”</p>

<p>Some toxins bio-accumulate. We pass them on to our kids. I grew up on a highway with leaded gas-fueled trucks running by all day and night. Lead accumulates.</p>

<p>Let me ask you to consider the other side of this - say you’ve had a reaction to a medication (not “in the head”, a real reaction) and therefore communicate this as an ‘allergy’. You receive only scorn from your medical office. You received no info ahead of time on possible drug reactions, of course, because they don’t want to give you ideas, so you suffer needlessly when you might have been able to receive a better alternative.</p>

[FallGirl]

<p>

Around 80% are just imagined. Everyone needs to feel so special.

</p>

<p>Nasty comment.</p>

<p>My son was diagnosed with multiple food allergies at age 2. Do you really think I made this up to feel “special”? I spent several years cooking meals which did not include wheat, milk or eggs, ran around buying (expensive) soy products, and could not leave the house with taking special food because just pulling into McDonalds was not an option. </p>

<p>By the time he was in first grade, some of the allergies were outgrown and life became easier.However the allergies to tree nuts, peanuts and shellfish remain. I was “class mom” all through elementary school meaning I got to bake/buy all of the food for the class parties. I still fill in lots of paper work and have to bring in the epipens to the school. Just today, I was running to the doctor with forms for an upcoming band trip.</p>

<p>So, do you really think I do this for attention???</p>

<p>I do consider myself very fortunate that S has never had a severe reaction. But I live with the knowledge that it could happen. Any day.</p>

[teriwtt]

<p>

Well at 60 I don’t think there is much chance of that.

</p>

<p>Ha! At 61, my cousin developed allergies to shellfish and (believe it or not) iceberg lettuce. True allergies… hives, rash, swelling in the throat, wheezing. Her sister got the shellfish allergies at 49 years old.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>Everything today is cleaner and generally safer yet people are becoming weaker</p>

<p>whoa.
[USDA</a> downplays own scientist’s research on ill effects of Monsanto herbicide | Grist](<a href=“http://www.grist.org/article/usda-downplays-own-scientists-research-on-danger-of-roundup/]USDA”>USDA downplays own scientist's research on ill effects of Monsanto herbicide | Grist)</p>

<p>[The</a> chemical treadmill breaks down and the superweeds did it | Grist](<a href=“http://www.grist.org/article/the-chemical-treadmill-breaks-down-and-the-superweeds-did-it]The”>The chemical treadmill breaks down and the superweeds did it | Grist)</p>

<p>[Mortality</a> among Workers Exposed to Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) in an Electrical Capacitor Manufacturing Plant in Indiana: An Update](<a href=“http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1332650/]Mortality”>Mortality among Workers Exposed to Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) in an Electrical Capacitor Manufacturing Plant in Indiana: An Update - PMC)</p>

<p>[Ode</a> Magazine : Everyday toxins](<a href=“http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/28/everyday_toxins/]Ode”>http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/28/everyday_toxins/)</p>

<p>[The</a> Cutting Edge News](<a href=“The Cutting Edge News”>The Cutting Edge News)</p>

<p>just a bunch of whingers
:rolleyes:</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>What to buy organic.</p>

<p>[Organic</a> Foods Picture Slideshow: To Buy or Not to Buy Organic](<a href=“http://www.webmd.com/health-ehome-9/slideshow-organic-foods]Organic”>Should You Buy Organic Food?)</p>

<p>

Going organic is good for you and the Earth, but if you can’t always afford it – since organic can cost 50%-100% more – experts recommend spending most of your organic food dollars on produce and the foods you eat most often. The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., recommends going organic on the “dirty dozen” – produce that has the highest pesticide residues – like peaches…</p>

<p>Lettuce has about 5 calories per cup. But they also have high levels of pesticide residue – the USDA Pesticide Data Program found 57 pesticide residues in spinach and 51 in lettuce.

</p>

[VeryHappy]

<p>My son, now 20, started getting hives when he was three. I took him to an allergist who performed skin tests and told me that he was allergic to wheat, milk, chicken, cinnamon, eggs, and half a dozen other things. She gave me a one-foot-high stack of papers on how to cook for kids with allergies, how to avoid wheat, what grains to use instead, why soy milk is good for you, blah, blah, blah. I tried this restrictive diet on my three-year-old for a week – of course he kept getting hives. I finally threw out all the literature, let him eat what he wanted, and just kept giving him Benadryl.</p>

<p>A few years later they invented Zyrtec, and DS could now be hive-free at the same time he was awake. Much better!!</p>

<p>Took him back to the same allergy practice about three years ago, to see if there was any new drug or other treatment. The original allergist who diagnosed all the food allergies was no longer there. The new allergist walked into the office, having already looked at son’s chart, and announced, “You were ill-served 15 years ago. You do not have food allergies.” </p>

<p>Son has “idiopathic hives” – meaning, no one knows the cause. </p>

<p>Treatment: Take Zyrtec whenever you get them. Case closed.</p>

[NYMomof2]

<p>FallGirl, our experience was similar, except that S1 was diagnosed much earlier. His first bite of a food other than breast milk (applesauce), at 4 months, caused a reaction. The first time we tried to feed him cereal with cow’s milk mixed in (about 1 year), the spoon missed his mouth and touched his cheek - hives. As a young child, he was allergic to so many foods (cow’s milk, goat’s milk, eggs, sesame seeds, peanuts, nuts, apples, etc.) that it was very hard to feed him. Every time we went somewhere we had to bring food for him. When he was in school, every time he was invited to another child’s house, we had to call the parents and find out whether they were willing to learn to use an Epi-pen. Every camp and program he went to required special arrangements. Can you imagine trying to make a birthday cake without using eggs or dairy? </p>

<p>All that made me feel really special.</p>

<p>Life got easier when he outgrew his allergies to goat’s milk, then cow’s milk, then eggs, and finally peanuts. (He is one of the few children who outgrew a documented peanut allergy.) He is still allergic to several tree nuts, but those are the only food he is allergic to now. Confirming that he had outgrown his allergies required, for each food, an entire day in the hospital for a food challenge. That made us feel very special.</p>

<p>During one of those food challenges, something went wrong, and his blood pressure plunged. There is nothing more frightening than seeing your child in trouble, when it is obvious that the doctors are scared to death. Very special.</p>

<p>The trip to the emergency room the time he took a bite of butternut squash ravioli that, as we learned later, contained walnuts made us feel extremely special. (The filling was very smooth, and the bite that made his throat close must have contained only a bit of walnut dust.) First the Epi-pen, then the ride to the hospital in an ambulance, the medicines they gave him in the ER, the almost all-night stay there, two days out of school afterward - we felt very special. </p>

<p>Fortunately, he is very careful. But, like FallGirl, I live with some ugly possibilities.</p>

[Hanna]

<p>"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?”). "</p>

<p>Heh. Try growing up in a psychiatrist’s house! :)</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>I am allergic to cats and to shellfish. The shellfish one definitely runs in my family, though my kids haven’t inherited. Well, I’m not really sure if the shellfish is an intolerance or an allergy, because shellfish will cause me to get violently ill and throw up, but it isn’t life threatening (no swelling, wheezing, inability to breathe, etc.) and I’m able to be around it, as long as I don’t eat it. Does it matter though? I think it’s weird that you think it’s “being special.”</p>

[Treetopleaf]

<p>

In the medical office where my wife works they are running into the same thing–people with long lists of supposed medical allergies. She has been in the business for about 35 years and never seen such stuff until the last few years. Most also have extensive food “allergies”.

</p>

<p>Some day in the enlightened future, ‘average’ doctors and nurses will better understand that what we eat and are exposed to influence our health, behavior, mood, etc. Someday they may even listen to their patients and learn from them instead of deriding them. Till then, I guess those of us who react poorly to some things will continue to receive their scorn and ridicule. The vast majority of them are of NO HELP when you have ‘allergies’. I don’t feel “special” because my kid suffered the same way some of these other posters suffered. I am angry. And sick of it.</p>

[barrons]

<p>I think many of today’s “allergies” and proneness to minor illnesses is due to the hothouse flower method of raising children today where all surfaces are sanitized, all play is supervised, and more time is spent on the games/computer/phone than outside in the environment. Light exposure to many nasty things when young tend to immunize when older.</p>

[starbright]

<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>Maybe its the company you keep? We eat out with groups and host lots of parties. I’d be hard pressed to think of anyone but two people out of many with food allergies they have to mention. Never had this problem. We also host visitors all the time (faculty coming to give talks). Never run into allergies there except one person I know in my field.</p>

<p>

I think many of today’s “allergies” and proneness to minor illnesses is due to the hothouse flower method of raising children today

</p>

<p>How would this explain your middle aged friends above then?</p>

<p>I think you are just being cranky.</p>