[quote=“kau826”]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.[/quote]
Interesting stuff.
What you described as an adverse reaction to blood pressure meds is exactly what my friend experiences…his lips swell, as well as his eyes.
Actually, I’ve been having this problem since before I started taking blood pressure medication, but that certainly does not help.
[quote]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.
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A lot of conditions stop when you stop being pregnant. Problem is you’re still stuck with teh bundle of joy. I wonder there must be some hidden health benefits, aside from 9 months free from the red tide.
Some blood pressure medications truly cause lips and face swell (angioedema). Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, such as enalapril and ramipril, are notably known to have chance to induce angioedema. Since ACE inhibitors are so widely prescribed in US, it is believed that these drugs are the leading cause of drug-induced angioedema there. But this side effect seems to be less frequently reported here in Taiwan. I seldom heard of this from my colleagues. Cough is complained more often, instead. Basically this drug can cause elevation of a kind of vasoactive substance in blood (bradykinin, but not histamine) of some persons, so angioedema follows.
Kau, I’m going to pass this info on to my friend…thank you. We live in the UAE and the doctors here have been unable to tell him why exactly he keeps reacting to the meds. They just keep saying ‘allergy’ and trying different meds with him, all of which cause the same reaction. The truth is, I don’t think they know.
I developed pollen allergies around 30. Just all of a sudden, one day in april my eyes were watery, sneezing like crazy. Allergy never occured to me until a week later I suspected I could be allergic. My doctor prescribed me the nasal spray which helped. Then a couple of springs later, they went away. Very strange. Never been allergic to anything before, but pollen allergies as an adult, which disappeared after a few years.
Where were you living then, and where do you live now
To have an allergy you need you AND the allergen. As mentioned earlier in the thread allergic reactions can be caused by multiple factors, as in your allergic response can be heightened by air pollution and mould. It probably just raises your overall level of IgG and therefore histamine levels.
For instance It’s common to hear of Taiwanese who move away from Kaoshiung and their allergies and asthma disappear.
Actually, when trying to raise an antibody to a substance or vaccine to a disease, you often also need to inject something called an adjuvant, which is another big molecule which stimulates the immune reaction and helps the immune system recognize the actual object in question and produce the appropriate response. Basically it acts as a primer.
I kind of agree with HHII that the location you lived and the way your immune system developed determine the onset of your symptoms. An allergy to pollens after age 30 is also weird to me, but it may occur. You should be “lucky” enough to expose to the pollens at the “right” time and at the “right” age, so an unlikely diagnosis falls on you, if it were a true allergy. At first I wonder if your symptoms are caused by “non-allergic” rhinitis, especially vasomotor rhinitis, yet the seasonal features, watery eyes and spontaneous recovery seem to lead to an “allergic” one. But anyway, since most symptoms of these two are induced by the same cells (mast cells) and the same mediators (histamine), both anti-histamines and nasal spray work.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]Where were you living then, and where do you live now
To have an allergy you need you AND the allergen. As mentioned earlier in the thread allergic reactions can be caused by multiple factors, as in your allergic response can be heightened by air pollution and mould. It probably just raises your overall level of IgG and therefore histamine levels.[/quote]
As for the mould and air pollution, the former can definitely cause allergic rhinitis, but the symptoms always persist throughout the seasons, so is called perennial rhinitis; whereas the latter always induces vasomotor rhinitis, instead, which symptoms occurred whenever exposed to irritant odors or car exhaust. So an allergic rhinitis can be seasonal, like hay fever, or can be perennial, like fungi allergy, and both of them are related to IgE. But a non-allergic rhinitis is almost not seasonal and it’s not an IgE-mediated problem. There are still other nose problems, such as mixed rhinitis, which is supposed to be the most common form of rhinitis, but its story is beyond the discussion here.
I grew up on Canada’s west coast mostly and never had allergies. After spending two years in Taiwan, the first spring back in Canada was when I became allergic to pollen. The following spring, I moved to northern California and was still sneezing, watery itchy eyes all spring, but not as badly as when in Vancouver. The spring after that, no symptoms at all. The itchy watery eyes were terrible, I still remember the feeling.
Last year, I landed in the hospital with let’s call it complications of the apendicitis from bout 3 years ago. They kept me 4 days without food and did a whole set of experiments, sorry, tests on me that practically cleaned my insides. Alas, I can now eat fish, no problem. And shrimp. No algae, no sireee, but the rest seems OK. Mind you, I haven’t pushed the envelope with sushi, any crustacean or snails, and I haven’t dared to try octopus yet, but it seems so far so good.
Problem is you’re still stuck with teh bundle of joy. I wonder there must be some hidden health benefits, aside from 9 months free from the red tide.
