In this threadthe claim is made that a picky eater turned out to be allergic to virtually all uncooked fruits and vegetables. I’m not seeing how this is even possible for a human immune system. Are claims like this physiologically valid or is there usaully a psychological component in these claims?
I’d be interested in seeing actual research and information about this, but I suspect this thread will be drowned in anecdotes.
Oral Allergy Syndrome is a condition in which you are not really allergic to the fruits and vegetables themselves, but to pollen molecules that they resemble. Lists of fruits and vegetables that may be involved include apples, peaches, plums, pears, cherries, carrots, celery, watermelon, cantaloupe, zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas and honey dew. So while it’s not all fruits and vegetables, I could see how it could seem that way. This allergy affects only uncooked fruits and vegetables, so it’s probably what was referred to in the other thread.
I was going to say that the only thing that isn’t really affected is citrus, and now I see that the person in the other thread didn’t have a problem with citrus, so it sounds like that is it.
What SpoilerVirgin said.
I probably have this. I say “probably” because I haven’t been tested. I haven’t been tested because the treatment is to avoid the foods that give you trouble. On the other hand, if I were tested, maybe my family would believe it’s real, which they don’t.
OAS truly is an allergy. As most Dopers know, most of what are referred to as food allergies are really food intolerances.
For me the reaction (itching, swelling) is mild and mostly affects my lips and the nearby skin. So some raw fruits and veggies are OK for me if they are first cut into very small pieces. (Or if they come that way, like grapes!)
As the original poster of the OP’s quote, I will say that this sounds almost exactly like what she experienced. Particularly this part from the link:
This sounds pretty much exactly like how her symptoms manifested themselves.
She used to have problems with swelling on her hands when she cut things up for soups, etc. She also has very wide-spread and severe allergies to pollens. When she had a pin prick allergy test on her back, all the swelling ran into each other so they couldn’t even measure how allergic she was so some things.
I would be better convinced if just one of the links on Google’s first page had any kind of actual medical research behind it.
It has been my clinical observation that multiple food allergies are a luxury of the overly-neurotic well-fed. It’s my personal opinion that there is a rough correlation between the number of “allergies” and the nuttiness of the patient or parent. There is enormous secondary gain to the whole “allergy” scam on the part of both clinical practitioners and the allergees themselves.
I am suspicious of most multiple food (and other) allergies that have not been at least double-blind tested.
In the interest of a GQ response, here is a starter article on some of the sketchier allergy tests with no proven value.
<oops>
Allergies, intolerances, and ‘sensitivities’ to certain foods are all different things, but each can cause varied symptoms and problems.
I am wishing food sensitivites on all the people who think those who have health issues from foods they eat are all neurotic, hypocondriacs, or fakers. 
It’s not hard to find the science on all this stuff. Try googling ‘oral allergy syndrome study’.
Disclaimer: I’m not saying that plenty of people who have food allergies/sensitivites aren’t neurotic, hyprocondriacs, fakers, or simply poorly informed or misinformed by doctors.
Not that it helps those of us with legitimately diagnosed multiple allergies to be instantly labeled a psycho. What am I supposed to do, risk anaphylaxis on a regular basis to satisfy you? What sort of documentation do I need in my chart for you to take me seriously? I’d really like to know, it would make life easier on both sides.
Of course, the fact most of the testing done on me was performed 30 years ago makes it that much harder to “document” it to the satisfaction of today’s medical industry. Am I supposed to go through testing all over again? Who is going to pay for that? My insurance won’t. I’m a on food stamps, so you know I have a lot of money to pay for this out of pocket. :rolleyes: Not to mention I’m not exactly eager to go through a stack of major reactions all over again. The swelling, the itchy, the puking, the explosive diarrhea, the wheezing and feeling of suffocation - all great fun.
Oddly enough, my primary physician who has to treat my rashes, congestion, watering eyes, and other allergic manifestations doesn’t seem to doubt me when I say “I’m prone to allergies”. The fact I can get a brilliant red, oozing rash just from brushing up against a tomato plant, or a similar reaction from the juice getting on my skin, makes me disinclined to put some in my mouth, you know? Even for purposes of medical testing. How about you eat this helping of poison ivy just to make sure it’s bad for you, hmm?
Tell me, doc, I’m dying to know - how do I convince you that I really do react badly to this list of foods here? Even better, is there a way I can do that without risking a trip to the ER or endangering my health?
I found information on OAS from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. IANADoctor or expert in medical research, but those don’t strike me as the type of organizations to get behind something that’s total woo-woo.
Of course, just because a real allergy or condition exists, doesn’t mean that everybody who claims to have it actually does.
Are you sure that this is not simply soreness from the acids in many fruits / vegetables?
I don’t consider myself to have any allergies, but if I eat fruit messily and don’t wash my face after, my lips can be sore and swollen for days after.
It’s important to define what you mean by “allergies”. Many docs, not necessarily appropriately, usually take it to mean a reaction mediated by IGE antibodies.
OTOH, many people with ‘food allergies’, in particular, have symptoms that have nothing to do with classic, IGE-mediated atopy, e.g. they report diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, etc., whereas IGE-reactions often have hives, “asthma”-like responses, all the way to anaphylaxis.
I am not sure what exactly they would have to gain. Other then the initial blood and prick tests, she has not seen a doctor regarding it and the only treatment they could suggest was “stay away from it.”
From the link you provided, they have these listed as the reliable testing methods:
This is the type of testing the OP patient had done. Blood test were for the food allergies and prick tests for all the pollens/molds/environmental allergens. I have seen the tests my self. There are pages and pages on positive test results.
I agree that some people with allergies are probably just hypochondriacs/faking it, but certainly not all. I certainly don’t believe in anyone who tests for allergies by, for example, trying to push down you arm while you hold the allergen, but that doesn’t mean an allergy doesn’t exist.
Attention. A feeling of being special. An excuse to not eat foods she doesn’t like.
I’m not saying that was the motivation in that case, but that’s the kind of advantage people get from phony allergy tests.
They might be confusing something like lactose intolerance or celiac disease with allergies. Those are real conditions, and they are treated by avoiding certain foods, just like allergies. It’s not hard to understand why someone might use the word “allergy” to describe something like that in conversation, even though technically it’s not an allergy.
Or they might have a learned food aversion. If you’ve gotten sick after eating a particular food before, the taste or smell of that food might make you nauseous. It’s not an allergy, but it is something that could make someone want to avoid particular foods. People tend to think descriptions of the circumstances that cause a food aversion are TMI, so I could see why someone might call it an allergy in polite conversation. I’d say I just didn’t care for whatever it was, unless I was dealing with one of those unreasonable people who thinks no one should have any food dislikes, and who practically requires a doctor’s note if you want to politely decline food offered to you.
I agree completely. We see this all the time, as well, in people who say they’re “allergic” to morphine, erythromycin, clindamycin, etc. This can lead to problems when the person actually would benefit from the named drug. Although there’s probably a 99.9% chance that they are misattributing the symptoms they experienced from the drug (eg. nausea, diarrhea) to allergy, there is a natural reluctance to prescribe something when a claim for allergy to that agent has been made.
Correlation is not causation. Have you considered the possibility that it’s the other way around? After all, the symptoms of anaphylaxis include a feeling of anxiety and “impending doom” according to Wikipedia. In my experience, even a low level allergic reaction can leave me on a hair trigger, even if it’s just because I feel lousy. If you felt like that a lot of the time, you might be neurotic too.
Proven testing is extremely important, but no testing is perfect. I test negative to all the first level prick tests, so my allergist tried the under-the-skin version, and I was positive to a number of things. They are all small allergies on their own, but they add up.