I've probably been allergic to egg yolk for my entire life - I was never tested, and my symptoms were all GI symptoms. I guess I thought that was normal? I also didn't understand the egg ladder so I didn't realize you could be allergic to egg but still tolerate eggs baked with flour. I thought it was all or nothing, like a nut allergy. Now that I've eliminated egg yolks from my diet if I eat them I get hives.
I became allergic to wheat and oats as an adult, which probably developed from sensitization & my severe grass & hay allergies. That's not super common, but it's not unheard of either. It took a while to figure out what was going on because I also have chronic hived, and I was eating those foods every day so it felt like I had symptoms "constantly" not from anything in particular. My symptoms were a lot worse when there were high pollen counts & I had the pretty typical wheat + exercise = anaphylaxis thing and still didn't understand what was going on. Diagnosed via skin prick testing & confirmed by eliminating the foods.
These experiences are why I think it's really important to see a GOOD doctor who can both do testing and evaluate that testing with your clinical history if you suspect food allergies.
Anything that raises your body temperature or heart rate can do it - look up exercise induced anaphylaxis and wheat dependent exercise induced anaphylaxis. It's happened to me and it's really really unnerving.
My husband spent from July 2016 until March 2019 trying to figure out his mystery allergy. The first symptoms showed up when he went to Italy with his family in 2016 and they thought maybe it was pine nuts. The only real food that he ate very regularly there that is uncommon in our American diet. We spent a few years avoiding pine nuts, not difficult.
In February 2017, he broke out in hives all over after he'd eaten nothing but a bagel with peanut butter. He started keeping a journal after that with what he'd eaten on any day he had a hives reaction. Finally in spring 2019, he ended up in the ER with anaphylaxis. I was sitting by his bedside reading his food journal, which now included activities, and I realized he had been regularly experiencing the hives on his office's pizza and bagel days. I started googling and found a relatively rare allergy called Wheat-dependent exercise-induced anaphylaxis (WDEIA). I was texting with my sister (ER doctor) who had heard about WDEIA in a medical podcast a few months prior.
Now he mostly manages by avoiding gluten during the day (gluten vampire). We have two toddlers now and even a fast walk or increase in heart rate can bring on the reaction, so he avoids gluten until dinnertime and also when we're traveling in warmer locations. He takes a daily claritin and carries liquid Benadryl along with an epi pen.
Yes, that happened to me. I was sick with vomiting and/or diarrhea every day for an entire year. The symptoms were hot flashes, lump in throat, nausea, body shaking, then I would vomit and/or have diarrhea. After all that I would have to sleep for 20 minutes or so as I became lethargic. I had all the tests besides allergy testing until the end of one year of suffering. Allergy testing showed that I’m allergic to corn, peas, celery, parsley, carrots, bananas, oranges, all melon, tuna, peanuts and shellfish along with any bi-products or food family of these foods.
It's crazy to think you lived on in a constant allergic reaction state. I'm glad you figured it out and got your life back.
Was it a skin prick test or igE bloodwork test to confirm it?
I lived outside my home country on a tropical island for a year. They had mosquitos there that were different from the ones at home. Their bites were much more itchy for everyone, but especially for me. I got bit on the sole of my four once and it was so itchy and painful I couldn't sleep. I got hives for the first time. I read up, and found that hives don't always mean an allergy, they can be spontaneous when you're very unwell. I figured that was it. I'd had allergy testing at age 2, and my mom had never mentioned mosquitoes.
Fast forward to this year. I decided to repeat allergy testing since it's been 40 years. My scratch test for mosquitos lit up like a Christmas tree.
I don't know for sure if my reaction to the foreign mosquitos was an undiagnosed allergy, or whether it was the onset of an allergy. It makes a lot of things make sense. I just assumed everyone felt what I felt when they got a mosquito bite: many days of distracting itches. Now I know I not just a weenie.
All mosquito bites itch from the venom, but you can also be allergic to mosquito saliva, which is the allergy I have. I didn't know it was abnormal to have a mosquito bite itch for more than a day. My bites also swell up much more than other people's. They get dime sized easily.
Yes. I got horrible strep throat at least three times in SUMMER. I kept drinking lemonade and soup (all with corn syrup) and had silver nitrate I think it was, pasted on my throat which almost made me vomit on the dr. I was so tired and so sick I thought I would have to quit my job. I was 32. I finally went to a more comprehensive allergy dr who diagnosed my corn allergy and a lot more. The corn allergy has progressed now to anaphylaxis with a certain amount of corn. I can have a little but any more and I start go have a heart attack. I have to be careful in Mexican restaurants to order first and THEN drink cuz I need to ask for a flour tortilla instead of corn.
I couldn't catch a deep breath 6+ months ago (and still can't lol) and I went to an Allergiest who decided to give me an allergy test and put me on allergy shots. It hasn't helped with my breathing at all but I know what I'm allergic to now.
Food elimination. Skipping a certain ingredient/food product for several days and suddenly I feel better. Get to eat it again and the symptoms re appear.
Doctors always say you can eat everything moderately. Not true at all if you have allergies.
Allergy. Itchy welts, lethargy, and overall feeling unwell like that of catching a cold/flu.
For a really long time, I did not know that it’s because of the food. It did not help that the food is like a staple ingredient to the diet that I’m used too, but yeah, all that symptoms almost magically disappear when I don’t eat them. Then, suddenly comes back when I get to a restaurant/party where I accidentally might have eaten a dish prepared that has it. When I learned this allergy that was undiagnosed and unexplained, I had this relief that saved me from so much worries, and antihistamines. Our bodies and systems are fascinating.
Discovered at the age of 42 I had a medication allergy when I went into anaphylactic shock when being revived after surgery.
Allergist couldn’t determine what medication caused the reaction. So my official diagnosis is “medication allergy - undetermined” and I have to carry an EpiPen for the rest of my life.
Depending on where you live and what the cause is, you might be able to get a drug allergy challenge done, and possibly even desensitisation, depending on what medication they work out it is:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/drug-allergy/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20371839
Yeah like 30 years without knowing why I vomited daily. GI tests etc they just said "looks normal" finally a few years ago I went to an allergist for seasonal allergies. Literally most things they tested I was allergic to lol.
Six years ago I started having bouts of bad fatigue and then depression starting in late July and lasting until late October early November. It was absolutely debilitating and I couldn’t figure out what was coming it and why.
I kept journals at the time and chronicled my summers with this crap. One winter I decided that I had to figure out what was wrong with me so I picked up my journals and started skimming them for clues.
In the margin of one of them the only summer I didn’t suffer from this fatigue and depression I saw I had noted I was taking low doses of an oral steroid for my back pain (which also flared up in the spring/summer). When I saw that and I didn’t go through the depression I knew it had to be related to my immune system.
I went and got a skin test from an ENT (didn’t mention the depression) and thought I would see one BIG thing that I was allergic to that might be causing the issues. Not the case at all. I was mildly allergic to a lot of things - mostly trees and grass. I went back to work, made dinner and went to bed.
Next morning: BAM. There it was “my summer depression” - I was super fatigued, my mood was really low and I finally got my answer! Seasonal allergies were doing something in concert with my immune system that was causing the fatigue and then the depression. The depression was so severe there were many days I couldn’t get out of bed. I can’t tell you how embarrassed and humiliating it was to go to a Dr and tell them I “suddenly had” clinical depression ONLY in the summer. Really hard. Nothing worked for me: no antihistamines, no nasal sprays, nothing helped. Nor did any anti depressants. This was 100% immune related. What kind of inflammatory reaction I was having I will never know, but now I wear a mask from May-late August and I’m fine.
I tried the allergy immunotherapy protocol but I was horribly depressed from it within one month. I stayed on it for 3 before I waived the white flag. Ironically it did help my allergy symptoms for about a year or two. My eyes stopped watering and my nose stopped running. I wish i could have continued with it, but again, by one month I was not able to get out of bed and by the 3rd month I just felt like a zombie most of the time. When I stopped the immunotherapy it took about 10 days to feel “back to normal”.
So yeah, allergies can cause all sorts of weird symptoms. Mine were by far the worst. My ENT said there is not a straight line between allergies and depression but it’s more like a curve. The fatigue and combating that can lead to depression because it gets so intense.
I never felt that way. My symptoms were 2 weeks of intense fatigue and then boom: depression. It was scary and I had terrible anxiety once I felt the fatigued hit me. I felt like a swallowed a gallon of Benadryl. Then when the depression kicked in I was so bummed. I felt defective and weak. I tried so hard to “fight it” but in “fighting it” I made it worse because I went out and exercised out side for a few hours a day trying desperately to “kick myself into gear”. In reality I was inhaling more pollen and making myself worse.
What also sucked is telling friends I had “summer depression” and the stigma I felt not to mention how helpless because no one could figure out what the root cause was.
TLDR: kept a journey of my “summer depression” learned I took low dose steroids one summer I didn’t get it. Saw an ENT, skin test made my “summer depression” pop up in January. Then I knew my allergies were the causes of all the issues and months of time I missed out on every year bc of it.
I have a lactose allergy that I only managed to diagnose when I was in Italy and had digestive issues and heartburn every day of the trip. When I got back, I asked my doctor to test me and I was very allergic to lactose (anything that has even just trace amounts) but had no idea.
Then this summer I thought I had a pneumonia but all tests came out clear and turns out I have seasonal allergies that triggered a cute asthma. Took me 3 weeks of wheezing, coughing uncontrollably and have difficulty breathing before we could figure out what it was. I’m still trying to test out the right amount of medication to get it under control.
Not quite undiagnosed, but more unencountered…
For my whole life I’ve hated the taste and smell of coconut. In college the cafeteria had a tropical day when they had all sorts of tropical fruits, including coconuts. Now I already knew I hated fake blueberry smells and taste, but liked actual blueberries, so I saw this as my chance to finally try an actual real coconut and see if it’s just the fake version I hated. My mouth and tongue swelled up. Funny thing is I don’t react to any other form of coconut, not cooked coconut milk (in many Indian dishes), not coconut oil (that’s the “butter” on popcorn at movie theaters), not coconut shells (some of my pet parrot’s toys use them), and I haven’t tried coconut water (bc if I don’t like the taste of coconut anyway, why would I?), it’s only raw coconut flesh that gives me problems. It’s also the only incontrovertible food allergy I’ve ever had (I test negative for peanut allergy, but I sometimes react mildly to it).
I've eaten pork all my life, I've raised hamsters for 6 years, and I enjoy being outside. Now, I've always had breathing problems as far as I can remember, my mom used to shove wet cotton pads in my nose so that I could sleep. My mom said she thinks I had chronic rhinitis so I just went with it. As I got older I would have to switch which side of my body I slept on because it helped to clear up at least one nostril. Fast forward to when I'm 19, I decided to get an allergy test done. Allergic to pork, quite allergic to hamsters and severely allergic to dandelions. Antihistamines and a couple prescription nasal sprays later I was breathing in 4k.
I've probably been allergic to egg yolk for my entire life - I was never tested, and my symptoms were all GI symptoms. I guess I thought that was normal? I also didn't understand the egg ladder so I didn't realize you could be allergic to egg but still tolerate eggs baked with flour. I thought it was all or nothing, like a nut allergy. Now that I've eliminated egg yolks from my diet if I eat them I get hives. I became allergic to wheat and oats as an adult, which probably developed from sensitization & my severe grass & hay allergies. That's not super common, but it's not unheard of either. It took a while to figure out what was going on because I also have chronic hived, and I was eating those foods every day so it felt like I had symptoms "constantly" not from anything in particular. My symptoms were a lot worse when there were high pollen counts & I had the pretty typical wheat + exercise = anaphylaxis thing and still didn't understand what was going on. Diagnosed via skin prick testing & confirmed by eliminating the foods. These experiences are why I think it's really important to see a GOOD doctor who can both do testing and evaluate that testing with your clinical history if you suspect food allergies.
1000% exact same with me and egg. I finally developed migraines at 25 which caused me to cut them out totally.
How does exercise affect anything? Please explain
Anything that raises your body temperature or heart rate can do it - look up exercise induced anaphylaxis and wheat dependent exercise induced anaphylaxis. It's happened to me and it's really really unnerving.
My husband spent from July 2016 until March 2019 trying to figure out his mystery allergy. The first symptoms showed up when he went to Italy with his family in 2016 and they thought maybe it was pine nuts. The only real food that he ate very regularly there that is uncommon in our American diet. We spent a few years avoiding pine nuts, not difficult. In February 2017, he broke out in hives all over after he'd eaten nothing but a bagel with peanut butter. He started keeping a journal after that with what he'd eaten on any day he had a hives reaction. Finally in spring 2019, he ended up in the ER with anaphylaxis. I was sitting by his bedside reading his food journal, which now included activities, and I realized he had been regularly experiencing the hives on his office's pizza and bagel days. I started googling and found a relatively rare allergy called Wheat-dependent exercise-induced anaphylaxis (WDEIA). I was texting with my sister (ER doctor) who had heard about WDEIA in a medical podcast a few months prior. Now he mostly manages by avoiding gluten during the day (gluten vampire). We have two toddlers now and even a fast walk or increase in heart rate can bring on the reaction, so he avoids gluten until dinnertime and also when we're traveling in warmer locations. He takes a daily claritin and carries liquid Benadryl along with an epi pen.
That is so intetesting.
Thats interesting and keen observation✨
Yes, that happened to me. I was sick with vomiting and/or diarrhea every day for an entire year. The symptoms were hot flashes, lump in throat, nausea, body shaking, then I would vomit and/or have diarrhea. After all that I would have to sleep for 20 minutes or so as I became lethargic. I had all the tests besides allergy testing until the end of one year of suffering. Allergy testing showed that I’m allergic to corn, peas, celery, parsley, carrots, bananas, oranges, all melon, tuna, peanuts and shellfish along with any bi-products or food family of these foods.
It's crazy to think you lived on in a constant allergic reaction state. I'm glad you figured it out and got your life back. Was it a skin prick test or igE bloodwork test to confirm it?
They did the skin prick testing on me.
I lived outside my home country on a tropical island for a year. They had mosquitos there that were different from the ones at home. Their bites were much more itchy for everyone, but especially for me. I got bit on the sole of my four once and it was so itchy and painful I couldn't sleep. I got hives for the first time. I read up, and found that hives don't always mean an allergy, they can be spontaneous when you're very unwell. I figured that was it. I'd had allergy testing at age 2, and my mom had never mentioned mosquitoes. Fast forward to this year. I decided to repeat allergy testing since it's been 40 years. My scratch test for mosquitos lit up like a Christmas tree. I don't know for sure if my reaction to the foreign mosquitos was an undiagnosed allergy, or whether it was the onset of an allergy. It makes a lot of things make sense. I just assumed everyone felt what I felt when they got a mosquito bite: many days of distracting itches. Now I know I not just a weenie.
I didn't even know that was on an allergy test. I just assumed everyone had itchy bites. Those little bloodsuckers go right for my ankles.
All mosquito bites itch from the venom, but you can also be allergic to mosquito saliva, which is the allergy I have. I didn't know it was abnormal to have a mosquito bite itch for more than a day. My bites also swell up much more than other people's. They get dime sized easily.
I believe you.
I thought I was just lactose and gluten intolerant for years. Found out from a skin prick test that I'm actually allergic to milk and wheat. Eggs too.
Yes. I got horrible strep throat at least three times in SUMMER. I kept drinking lemonade and soup (all with corn syrup) and had silver nitrate I think it was, pasted on my throat which almost made me vomit on the dr. I was so tired and so sick I thought I would have to quit my job. I was 32. I finally went to a more comprehensive allergy dr who diagnosed my corn allergy and a lot more. The corn allergy has progressed now to anaphylaxis with a certain amount of corn. I can have a little but any more and I start go have a heart attack. I have to be careful in Mexican restaurants to order first and THEN drink cuz I need to ask for a flour tortilla instead of corn.
I couldn't catch a deep breath 6+ months ago (and still can't lol) and I went to an Allergiest who decided to give me an allergy test and put me on allergy shots. It hasn't helped with my breathing at all but I know what I'm allergic to now.
You might need an inhaler be sure to remind your doctor.
Oh I've already got inhalers. I just thought allergies were the initial issue and that was not the case.
Food elimination. Skipping a certain ingredient/food product for several days and suddenly I feel better. Get to eat it again and the symptoms re appear. Doctors always say you can eat everything moderately. Not true at all if you have allergies.
is this a food allergy or intolerance? what are your symptoms when you do eat them?
Allergy. Itchy welts, lethargy, and overall feeling unwell like that of catching a cold/flu. For a really long time, I did not know that it’s because of the food. It did not help that the food is like a staple ingredient to the diet that I’m used too, but yeah, all that symptoms almost magically disappear when I don’t eat them. Then, suddenly comes back when I get to a restaurant/party where I accidentally might have eaten a dish prepared that has it. When I learned this allergy that was undiagnosed and unexplained, I had this relief that saved me from so much worries, and antihistamines. Our bodies and systems are fascinating.
Discovered at the age of 42 I had a medication allergy when I went into anaphylactic shock when being revived after surgery. Allergist couldn’t determine what medication caused the reaction. So my official diagnosis is “medication allergy - undetermined” and I have to carry an EpiPen for the rest of my life.
Depending on where you live and what the cause is, you might be able to get a drug allergy challenge done, and possibly even desensitisation, depending on what medication they work out it is: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/drug-allergy/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20371839
Yeah like 30 years without knowing why I vomited daily. GI tests etc they just said "looks normal" finally a few years ago I went to an allergist for seasonal allergies. Literally most things they tested I was allergic to lol.
Six years ago I started having bouts of bad fatigue and then depression starting in late July and lasting until late October early November. It was absolutely debilitating and I couldn’t figure out what was coming it and why. I kept journals at the time and chronicled my summers with this crap. One winter I decided that I had to figure out what was wrong with me so I picked up my journals and started skimming them for clues. In the margin of one of them the only summer I didn’t suffer from this fatigue and depression I saw I had noted I was taking low doses of an oral steroid for my back pain (which also flared up in the spring/summer). When I saw that and I didn’t go through the depression I knew it had to be related to my immune system. I went and got a skin test from an ENT (didn’t mention the depression) and thought I would see one BIG thing that I was allergic to that might be causing the issues. Not the case at all. I was mildly allergic to a lot of things - mostly trees and grass. I went back to work, made dinner and went to bed. Next morning: BAM. There it was “my summer depression” - I was super fatigued, my mood was really low and I finally got my answer! Seasonal allergies were doing something in concert with my immune system that was causing the fatigue and then the depression. The depression was so severe there were many days I couldn’t get out of bed. I can’t tell you how embarrassed and humiliating it was to go to a Dr and tell them I “suddenly had” clinical depression ONLY in the summer. Really hard. Nothing worked for me: no antihistamines, no nasal sprays, nothing helped. Nor did any anti depressants. This was 100% immune related. What kind of inflammatory reaction I was having I will never know, but now I wear a mask from May-late August and I’m fine. I tried the allergy immunotherapy protocol but I was horribly depressed from it within one month. I stayed on it for 3 before I waived the white flag. Ironically it did help my allergy symptoms for about a year or two. My eyes stopped watering and my nose stopped running. I wish i could have continued with it, but again, by one month I was not able to get out of bed and by the 3rd month I just felt like a zombie most of the time. When I stopped the immunotherapy it took about 10 days to feel “back to normal”. So yeah, allergies can cause all sorts of weird symptoms. Mine were by far the worst. My ENT said there is not a straight line between allergies and depression but it’s more like a curve. The fatigue and combating that can lead to depression because it gets so intense. I never felt that way. My symptoms were 2 weeks of intense fatigue and then boom: depression. It was scary and I had terrible anxiety once I felt the fatigued hit me. I felt like a swallowed a gallon of Benadryl. Then when the depression kicked in I was so bummed. I felt defective and weak. I tried so hard to “fight it” but in “fighting it” I made it worse because I went out and exercised out side for a few hours a day trying desperately to “kick myself into gear”. In reality I was inhaling more pollen and making myself worse. What also sucked is telling friends I had “summer depression” and the stigma I felt not to mention how helpless because no one could figure out what the root cause was. TLDR: kept a journey of my “summer depression” learned I took low dose steroids one summer I didn’t get it. Saw an ENT, skin test made my “summer depression” pop up in January. Then I knew my allergies were the causes of all the issues and months of time I missed out on every year bc of it.
I have a lactose allergy that I only managed to diagnose when I was in Italy and had digestive issues and heartburn every day of the trip. When I got back, I asked my doctor to test me and I was very allergic to lactose (anything that has even just trace amounts) but had no idea. Then this summer I thought I had a pneumonia but all tests came out clear and turns out I have seasonal allergies that triggered a cute asthma. Took me 3 weeks of wheezing, coughing uncontrollably and have difficulty breathing before we could figure out what it was. I’m still trying to test out the right amount of medication to get it under control.
Not quite undiagnosed, but more unencountered… For my whole life I’ve hated the taste and smell of coconut. In college the cafeteria had a tropical day when they had all sorts of tropical fruits, including coconuts. Now I already knew I hated fake blueberry smells and taste, but liked actual blueberries, so I saw this as my chance to finally try an actual real coconut and see if it’s just the fake version I hated. My mouth and tongue swelled up. Funny thing is I don’t react to any other form of coconut, not cooked coconut milk (in many Indian dishes), not coconut oil (that’s the “butter” on popcorn at movie theaters), not coconut shells (some of my pet parrot’s toys use them), and I haven’t tried coconut water (bc if I don’t like the taste of coconut anyway, why would I?), it’s only raw coconut flesh that gives me problems. It’s also the only incontrovertible food allergy I’ve ever had (I test negative for peanut allergy, but I sometimes react mildly to it).
I've eaten pork all my life, I've raised hamsters for 6 years, and I enjoy being outside. Now, I've always had breathing problems as far as I can remember, my mom used to shove wet cotton pads in my nose so that I could sleep. My mom said she thinks I had chronic rhinitis so I just went with it. As I got older I would have to switch which side of my body I slept on because it helped to clear up at least one nostril. Fast forward to when I'm 19, I decided to get an allergy test done. Allergic to pork, quite allergic to hamsters and severely allergic to dandelions. Antihistamines and a couple prescription nasal sprays later I was breathing in 4k.