… really sucks. It is really, really bad. Can’t have fish. Or shrimp. Well, any seasfood. That’s a given. But I bought this expensive set of vitamins in the US. Every time I take it, I break out and even find it hard to swallow. And no, it doesn’t have fish oil. It’s got vitamin E.
Anyone else on the same boat?
Getting old sucks. sigh
how come mostly North Americans have allergies, is it the GM food or what? Never heard of anyone in Taiwan with a food allergy!?
There’s a whole thread on this from a while back. That sucks icon. Maybe some of the vitamins are extracted from fish or the coating that is used is a fish extract.
Pretty sure this endocrinologist I used to bang told me that (roughly) 16, 30, and 45 were all ages where previously non-existent allergies can suddenly start to assert themselves.
So…
Señorita, I guess you just have to wait to turn 17. 
Or else you have too many animals , 50 cats and 70 dogs can’t be good for your health, sure its not that? Or maybe you are pregnant, my wife got terrible allergies when pregnant?
Milka: eh, define North American. I am from the Northern Hemisphere, but I am Latino/Oversize Chinese. 
We did not have GM when I was growing up- was not invented yet-, but rather a lot of chemicals from the banana company. Maybe Western or Caucasian? But then I am not fully Caucasian.
However, the topic at hand is when you develop as an adult, all of a sudden and out of nowhere, an allergy towards something that you had not suffered from before. The theory says that as you age, the defense mechanisms of the body start to go haywire, and that is when problems really turn ugly.
Headhoncho: yep, mostly how to deal with allergies in Taiwan. I just wanted to know if anyone else had developed symptoms as an adult, not necessarily just in Taiwan.
Dunno about the pets. Allergies could be environmental, as manifested in most asthma and skin problems. Don’t know if we could blame them for the fish, though.
As to the pregnancy, well, not yet, but I’ll be looking for volunteers for the required ingredients to bake that cake. 
Actually, one of the reasosn for the vitamins and diet and stuff is to complete that next proyect in the foreseable future, with a healthy body, but with these allergies it won’t be pleasant. First time I hear, pregnancy related allergies. :s On top of everything else… 
Do you know anyone interested in taking vitamins? 
Chief: this endocrinologist with good taste, did she mention any specific triggers for those particular age groups? And whether the allergies would suddenly dissappear as well as suddenly appear?
Pssst! Ont-day ention-may e-thay azy-cray at-cay ady-lay eal-day 
!!!
[quote=“Icon”]
Chief: this endocrinologist with good taste,[/quote]
[quote=“Icon”]
did she mention any specific triggers for those particular age groups? And whether the allergies would suddenly dissappear as well as suddenly appear?[/quote]
Not really, I know this because I suddenly started getting wicked hay fever in my late 20s when I’d never had it before, but it did kind of recede after a few years. 
I’ve heard the opposite too, how childhood allergies and asthma tends to recede in adulthood. There are some new desensitisation techniques that may work for seafood allergies.
Deffo, I had a neph who suffered maniacally with athsma as a wee fella, but it totally disappeared once he passed adolescence.
Do NOT try to desensitize yourself to food allergies. Have an allergist get involved with your care. With every re-exposure, the allergic reaction can become more severe. If you have food allergies and you like to dine out, it is a good idea to carry an Epipen at all times.
Allergies can be induced in a polluted environment, even in people who have not had allergies in the past. For instance, studies have shown that patients exposed to ozone and an allergen (like ragweed) can become allergic to the ragweed even if they have never had a problem with ragweed in the past.
If you suffer greatly, the best idea is to rid yourself of potential triggers. Avoid perfumes and dyes in the products you use, clear your environment of smoke and dust (old bedding, stuffed animals, and carpeting), dander (wash your pets frequently), and mold (old houses need to be kept cool and DRY.)
Good luck.
[quote=“mimiliu161”]Do NOT try to desensitize yourself to food allergies. Have an allergist get involved with your care. With every re-exposure, the allergic reaction can become more severe. If you have food allergies and you like to dine out, it is a good idea to carry an Epipen at all times.
Allergies can be induced in a polluted environment, even in people who have not had allergies in the past. For instance, studies have shown that patients exposed to ozone and an allergen (like ragweed) can become allergic to the ragweed even if they have never had a problem with ragweed in the past.
If you suffer greatly, the best idea is to rid yourself of potential triggers. Avoid perfumes and dyes in the products you use, clear your environment of smoke and dust (old bedding, stuffed animals, and carpeting), dander (wash your pets frequently), and mold (old houses need to be kept cool and DRY.)
Good luck.[/quote]
Also, I seemed to feel better once I stopped sleeping with that endocrinologist.
That may have been concidental.
One of my best friends, a 39 year old American guy, just started developing a series of allergies in the past year. He used to eat loads of seafood, and all of a sudden he became allergic, just like you. And not just shellfish, but all fish. He also developed allergies to nuts and to a medication he has been talking for years for high blood pressure.
I have always suffered from hay fever, but the nature of how my allergy manifests itself has changed a lot since my mid-20’s, which is strange. I used to get puffy, watery eyes, but now it is almost strictly skin reactions. I will get small, colorless bumps on my arms and face and I feel like I want to jump out of my skin. It goes away with the right meds and happens a few times a year now, presumably from an allergen in the air. I am also much more severely allergic to animal dander and dust than I ever was growing up. I will break out in rashes and feel like I want to scratch my skin off. It is almost unbearable! I can barely even enter a house that has pets nowadays. I can actually feel the animal when I walk in the house.
[quote=“Indiana”]One of my best friends, a 39 year old American guy, just started developing a series of allergies in the past year. He used to eat loads of seafood, and all of a sudden he became allergic, just like you. And not just shellfish, but all fish. He also developed allergies to nuts and to a medication he has been talking for years for high blood pressure.
I have always suffered from hay fever, but the nature of how my allergy manifests itself has changed a lot since my mid-20’s, which is strange. I used to get puffy, watery eyes, but now it is almost strictly skin reactions. I will get small, colorless bumps on my arms and face and I feel like I want to jump out of my skin. It goes away with the right meds and happens a few times a year now, presumably from an allergen in the air. I am also much more severely allergic to animal dander and dust than I ever was growing up. I will break out in rashes and feel like I want to scratch my skin off. It is almost unbearable! I can barely even enter a house that has pets nowadays. I can actually feel the animal when I walk in the house.[/quote]
Yakiombo! That’s horrible!
It certainly is very unpleasant for my friend, especially since we don’t even have an allergist in the city we live in! For me, it’s not too bad…certain over the counter meds work for me and when I feel the allergies coming on, I start taking them and it keeps it completely at bay.
If you are exposed to an environment with pets and you are sensitive to animal dander, take a shower immediately when you get home. Put the clothes you were wearing in the wash. Before you go to your friend’s home who has pets, make certain you take an antihistamine, Loratidine or Cetirizine work well, but so does even diphenhydramine (benadryl). Make certain you are staying well hydrated.
If you have allergies, stay away from whatever it is that makes you react. If it is airborne, like pollen, wear a facemask and sunglasses when you go out to work in the garden. Food allergies require avoidance as the first line of defense. Mold allergies require keeping your environment COOL and DRY. Keep fruits and vegetable off the kitchen counter!
mimi
I developed a mango allergy when I was about 30. But it wasn’t because I was 30 it was because I ate FAR too many. Pregnancy allergies tend to go away when you stop being pregnant.
I have this too! I discovered it in Taiwan, after having eaten mangoes for many years. I believe I am allergic to the sap of certain types. If I cut it myself and am careful about not getting any sap onto the fruit, I am fine, but I have reacted in the past when I had them at restaurants, etc. My hands and feet swell and my whole body feels so uncomfortably itchy that the only relief is a cold bath. It goes away after about an hour.
As for pets, I simply don’t go to anyone’s home anymore if they have them as my allergic reaction is too strong; it’s not worth it. I am ok with cats (no more than one usually) if the house is kept impeccably clean, but as for dogs, forget it.
I have this too! I discovered it in Taiwan, after having eaten mangoes for many years. I believe I am allergic to the sap of certain types. If I cut it myself and am careful about not getting any sap onto the fruit, I am fine, but I have reacted in the past when I had them at restaurants, etc. My hands and feet swell and my whole body feels so uncomfortably itchy that the only relief is a cold bath. It goes away after about an hour.
As for pets, I simply don’t go to anyone’s home anymore if they have them as my allergic reaction is too strong; it’s not worth it. I am ok with cats (no more than one usually) if the house is kept impeccably clean, but as for dogs, forget it.[/quote]
I seem to get the mango allergy from touching the skin, but my reaction is so bad I don’t want to experiment too much to find out. My head swells up like a balloon and I frighten small children in the street. It’s horrible because I love mangoes. There’s a longer story behind my development of the allergy that sounds like divine justice if I believed in such things.
In my opinion and limited experience, allergy to mango seems to be an irritative reaction to its skin and sap most of the time. I remember that Mango belongs to the family of Anacardiaceae, which has irritative chemicals in its sap that cause us itch. So some of my teachers told me that if a certain thickness of the skin (0.5cm or so) was carefully peeled off, the mango pulp might be alright. I am not allergic to this fruit, so I am not very sure about the authenticity. But this statement aforementioned can be retrieved in the literature.
And also, some obvious allergy-like reactions might not be a true allergy, as a matter of fact. For example, some blood pressure-lowering drugs could cause allergy-like symptoms. The lip will swell and sometimes the throat swells, too. This is not allergy, but an adverse reaction to the medication. So anti-histamine and steroid might not be as effective as they are for “true” allergy. If this happened, you’d better report it to your doc and stop and avoid the drug at best. The same doubt goes to the allergy to seafood here. The ingradients to cook or sometimes the unknown chemicals formed in the stale seafood might be the culprits, instead.