>sigh< Yes, I know…
When I go to the doctor I have a long list of allergies. Or these days I’m sometimes told they’re “food intolerances”. I don’t like to argue the technical terms, from my viewpoint there is this list of stuff that, particularly if I eat it, makes my life hell. It has even landed me in the ER twice with very nasty, potentially life-threatening reactions.
I maintain that asthmatics are NOT asthmatic because they’re nervous/anxious/nutty but rather they’re nervous/anxious/nutty because they can’t breathe properly. It boggles my mind that if someone with a compromised airway comes into the ER they’re more or less expected or allowed to be in a state of fear or panic but if an asthmatic comes in with severe breathing difficulties they’re not starved for air, they’re “crazy”.
I think I also throw medical types because, first of all, despite having multiple food allergies (and please stop telling me “multiple food allergies are rare in adults” - I’m tired of being told I won the EvilLottery. Apparently I’m a rarity, deal with it) I also have a very wide and varied diet. I am NOT prone to weird diets, elimination diets, eliminating entire categories of food, and so forth. And while my hair might be described as “mousy brown” and I am a woman, I am a most atypical woman prone to stereotypical “male pursuits” and not at all shy or retiring.
The fact I don’t seem to react to either poison ivy or bee stings just further muddies the water. Not that I seek out opportunities to be exposed to those, as I am aware that my apparent immunity could evaporate without warning. Nor do I claim a long list of drug allergies (just leviquin, and that was only in the past 4 years, and honestly may not be a true allergy but anything that causes me to puke for several hours straight should probably be avoided if possible, right?)
Of course, if you went about trying to live your life while either being surrounded by or randomly encountering substances that make you feel anywhere from annoyed to actively dying, substances that don’t affect hardly anyone else and which they are chronically careless about strewing hither and yon, YOU might be a little paranoid, too. If every meal you have outside of your own kitchen could potentially result in a trip to the ER, yes, you just might wind up a little eccentric and paranoid about eating.
Which REALLY pisses me off about people saying “I have an allergy” when really they just don’t like the taste. It makes it that much harder for those of us who really have allergies.
Do emotions affect allergies? They sure can. Emotions can affect a whole bunch of things, including heart disease and various eating disorders and sleep disturbances and stuff. So can a woman’s menstrual cycle - I am definitely more allergic the week before I have my monthly bleeding (both trips to the ER occurred a couple days before my period). With this in mind, I try to eat in and be very careful about avoiding my triggers whereas other times of the month I am less “crazy” about avoiding things. That’s one of the hard things about allergies - you have to avoid things that almost everyone else finds harmless and you come off as a nutcase if you’re scrupulous about it. If you’re not then you spend a lot of time under medical care and get labeled as “difficult” or “noncompliant”.
On the other hand, there ARE a lot of batshit crazies who claim allergies to anything and everything. I’m sure those people are as annoying to doctors as they are to me. I really just want to whack them with a clue-by-four. Some of the batshit crazies may, in fact, have a real allergy or two, but others are just… well… crazy. Off their rockers. The cheese slid off their cracker. Just plain nuts.
