ADD exists. I have no idea if it is over-diagnosed or not.
I beg to differ. Wool feels like tiny litle pinpricks to me. All wool. I don’t get a rash or anything, its just very uncomfortable. Been this way all my life, and it happens with fabric that I don’t know contains woll till I start to itch. I wish to heck this weren’t true, as the best winter clothes are wool, I hate fake fabrics!
But “allergic” is a medical term that (as I understand it) means a reaction to certain proteins. People can find wool uncomfortable - and it certain gives me a contact rash. People can find cigarette smoke maddening (and it can trigger some intense asthma attacks), but neither of these are technically “allergic” reactions, because these things don’t contain proteins. (this is my lay understanding and I could be quite wrong)
I may say - in casual conversation - that I’m allergic to wool - what I mean is that wearing it makes me uncomfortable, not that it makes me break out in hives, ups my mucus production, makes my throat swell…likewise, a lot of people describe themselves in casual conversation as “allergic to cigarette smoke” - and they do have health issues around smoke - but they technically aren’t allergic reacations.
- Wool allergies exist but are rare- dudes are allergic to lanolin:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1600-0536.1988.tb02866.x
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1600-0536.1979.tb04824.x
*Allergy to lanolin
TOVE MORTENSEN1
The purpose of the present study wastocompare the frequency of lanolin allergy during two periods and to assess the adequacy of testing with one standard allergen. Among 1230 consecutive patients with eczema who were standard patch tested, 33 (2.7 %), 21 females and 12 males, gave a positive reaction to wool alcohols. Among 899 consecutive patients with eczema standard patch tested and also tested with the lanolin derivatives hydrogenated lanolin 30% in soft yellow paraffin. Amerchol L 101®, and a mixture of lanolin derivatives, 60 patients (6.6 %), 48 females and 12 males, gave a positive reaction to lanolin and/or its derivatives. The results show that testing with one standard lanolin allergen is inadequate for detecting lanolin allergy.
*
But I agree*- most * dudes that claim “I am allergic to wool” just don’t like the itchy feel of cheaper wools.
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Yes, sting allergy is rarer that thought.
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MSG:
The monosodium glutamate symptom complex: assessment in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized study - PubMed
BACKGROUND: Considerable debate swirls about the validity of symptoms described by many people after ingestion of monosodium glutamate (MSG), and the question has remained unresolved largely because of a paucity of well-designed challenge studies. METHODS: We conducted oral challenge studies in self-identified MSG-sensitive subjects to determine whether they had a statistically significant difference in the incidence of their specific symptoms after ingestion of MSG compared with placebo. First, 5 gm MSG or placebo was administered in random sequence in a double-blind fashion. Subjects who reacted only to a single test agent then underwent rechallenge in random sequence in a double-blind fashion with placebo and 1.25, 2.5, and 5 gm MSG. A positive response to challenge was defined as the reproduction of > of 2 of the specific symptoms in a subject ascertained on prechallenge interview. RESULTS: Sixty-one subjects entered the study. On initial challenge, 18 (29.5%) responded to neither MSG nor placebo, 6 (9.8%) to both, 15 (24.6%) to placebo, and 22 (36.1%) to MSG (p = 0.324). Total and average severity of symptoms after ingestion of MSG (374 and 80) were greater than respective values after placebo ingestion (232 and 56; p = 0.026 and 0.018, respectively). Rechallenge revealed an apparent threshold dose for reactivity of 2.5 gm MSG. Headache (p < 0.023), muscle tightness (p < 0.004), numbness/tingling (p < 0.007), general weakness (p < 0.040), and flushing (p < 0.016) occurred more frequently after MSG than placebo ingestion. CONCLUSIONS: Oral challenge with MSG reproduced symptoms in alleged sensitive persons. The mechanism of the reaction remains unknown, but symptom characteristics do not support an IgE-mediated mechanism. According to Food and Drug Administration recommendations, the symptoms, originally called the Chinese restaurant syndrome, are better referred to as the MSG symptom complex. -
Yes, certainly it exists. Diagnostic problems abound, however.
OK . . . I’ll agree that I’m not medically “allergic” to wool . . . Still, wool does make me itch, and nobody is going to convince me it doesn’t.
I was an Allergic Child. Anecdotal evidence, YMMV:
My parents (in the 70s) couldn’t be bothered to find out what was causing the occasional rashes, so my mother blithely declared me allergic to wool, peas, chocolate, normal soap, and a variety of other things as the mood struck, similar to bordelond’s wife.* It turned out to be (ta-da) peanuts! Back then, that hadn’t occurred to anyone. I rarely ate peanut butter (yuck, gross) so I was rarely exposed. I grew more sensitive over time, and I’ve certainly grown more sensitive to the smell, but I can’t recall ever having a physical reaction to someone else’s peanut use, and I certainly didn’t die as a child despite repeated exposure to my PB&J-eating peers.
- My “chicken pox” turned out to have been a fake diagnosis, too, as I later painfully discovered.
But…but…that’s what stings DO! They get red and swell and hurt or sting. They cause a localized histamine response in almost everyone. But this could be why people think they’re “allergic” when they’re just responding like normal people.
I have my own WAG about why allergies and eczema are so much more prevalent, and it sort of piggy-backs on the “too clean” theory: we’re indoors too much. No, not Sick Building Syndrome - we don’t injure ourselves enough. I remember so many scraped knees and elbows, “owies”, blisters, splinters - my mother practically ran a first aid shack. I didn’t have an unblemished hide in 13 years. She likely wouldn’t even have noticed a peanut rash or a patch of eczema from all the other marks on my skin! If I did get something “funny”, I might be lucky enough to get a dab of Calamine before being told to go outside and play. Anything that didn’t involve a broken bone or arterial spray was “perfectly fine.” Now our kids are so pasty white or milky brown and abrasion-free that we notice those three little dots on the wrist and have the luxury of panicking over them.
Again, I’m not saying they shouldn’t be treated, they should. Just that this might be one reason we don’t have medical reports of them as much in the past - the mild cases were considered “no big deal” and never reported to the doctor.
Well sure it does. Wool is itchy stuff. You shouldn’t be wearing it next to the skin unless you have a fluffy tail and go “baa.”
Try fine Merino wool, or “SmartWool”, or chasmere.
If a histamine response isn’t an allergy (albeit a mild one), than what is? There’s no similar reaction if I were to jab a sewing needle into my skin.
When people have said that bee stings didn’t bother them, I always thought they didn’t much feel them beyond what a small wood splinter would feel like. Those folks that do beards of bees will usually say afterwards “oh, a few of 'em stung me”, and yet will show no swelling (well, it’s hard to be sure on TV).
But again – are wasp stings different animals from honeybee stings?
Well, ummm, now that you mention it . . .
I’m with Eve. Wool makes me itch*. I do have some nice cashmere sweaters, but if I wear them for a long time, I still get the itchies. It’s like bugs crawling all over me.
I have a couple that I just wear a cotton undershirt (a wife-beater) underneath of so I don’t itch.
I prefer cotton.
- Yeah, I know it’s not an allergy. Just chiming in on the ‘itchy’ thing.
No, not every histamine response is an allergy. An allergy is a *disorder *characterized by a *hypersensitive *histamine response (cite) , not a perfectly ordinary histamine response to a normal trigger. Another definition begins with “An abnormally high acquired sensitivity to certain substances” (cite) A reddend, ouchy sting is not abnormal.
It is a perfectly normal *localized *histamine response that 90% (yes, I made that number up) of people get when stung by a bee (or a wasp, but wasps generally produce more of a response because they sting multiple times and leave more venom in place.) It’s a chemical reaction to venom designed to produce histamines.
When a person is truly allergic to bees, they have an abnormal, hypersensitive systemic response - the airway tightens, their heart rate goes up, they stop breathing and die. There’s a small percent of people who have that true allergy to beestings. There’s another small percent who have no response to beestings at all - like you say, it’s as if they got a splinter.
I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t have a localized response to a wasp sting, however. I’m sure there’s someone out there who doesn’t, but it’s like being immune to rattlesnake poison - rare and not to be counted on.
Allergies are NOT dose related. Peanut allergies, like pennicillin allergies can be progressive. One may have only a rash with several exposures, then have a more serious, even fatal reaction.
I worked with a respiratory therapist with a nut allergy, who survived after touching a cookie with nuts, only because he was within seconds of medical attention. Even so, he was hospitalized for a couple weeks, and intubated (a breathing tube) for several days.
Is it worth the risk? Are you willing to be responsible for your neighbor’s child’s death?
Let them eat peanut butter at home. A varied diet is healthier anyway.
My kid is allergic to peanuts (and all nuts, and legumes, sigh). I’m willing to agree that some parents are over-hysterical. However, I have to say that my own paranoia came about because before I learned to be properly paranoid–when the allergy was new–she kept running into nuts and getting sick.
I don’t know if soy milk could have caused the allergies, but I’m more inclined to think she was born allergic to stuff. When I weaned her, she turned out to be allergic to milk; thus the soy formula and soy milk. She grew out of the milk thing, and now she can’t have soy. Whee! Anyway, the eczema started at 6 months, before weaning, so…who knows.
We do, in fact, have nuts and peanut butter in the house, but they are mainly eaten when she isn’t nearby.
While my kid does not go into anaphylactic shock, she has had reactions to ‘environmental’ exposure to peanuts–she once rubbed her eye after touching some raisins that had touched peanuts, and promptly developed a hugely puffy, swelled-up face (I suppose from some dust getting into her eye). That was at someone else’s home; I wasn’t there, so I’m not sure.
The problem with peanut allergies is that they can get worse with exposure. That’s the main reason I’m so paranoid; every time she gets exposed, it’s a step on the road to anaphylaxis, which I would really prefer to avoid, and a step away from growing out of it. If it was just a rash, or just some vomiting, and then total recovery, it would be much easier to relax and let people eat their sandwiches in peace–but it’s not. Every time she runs into a peanut, it’s really a bad thing.
I do have a certain amount of sympathy for parents who want peanut-free zones. One reason: a kid I know told me about his friend, who is allergic to peanuts. Every day, another kid teases him by trying to shove his PB&J into his face. (I have to think that the kid isn’t telling his parents about this situation, because I would be going nuclear on someone.) Now, the bully-kid is just being an ordinary, dare-ya kind of kid–he really doesn’t realize the kind of damage he could do with his ‘fun.’ But every school has kids like that, and some of them are going to succeed in making allergic kids very sick. We all have heard people on this board complain about their adult friends and relatives who try to sneak various allergenic foods into their meals, in order to prove that they “aren’t really allergic.” Who thinks that kids have more sense than that?
Yes, it is worth the risk.
There is an equal or better chance that some random kid will be allergic to the shrimp in the pate, the tuna fish in the sandwhich, the wheat in the bread, the milk in the little cartons given out in the school, the cashews in the trail mix or eggs in the egg salad. Why is peanut butter singled out? The others I listed are more common anaphylactic allergens. Even those who do die from food related anaphylaxsis are not very likely to die from peanuts. It’s a ridiculous and unscientific witch hunt.
If we force parents to eliminate every common allergen, at least I’d feel it had more basis in actual safety minded thinking. I’d be pissed off that I couldn’t make a healthy lunch for my kid because someone else can’t remember to eat what they packed, but I’d accept the reasoning behind it. As it stands, it’s just stupid.
I’m sorry for your co-worker (and I hope that was his first reaction, because anyone who’d been through it before would be an idiot to reach for a plate of cookies unless he’d baked them himself), but no, I don’t think I’m ethically bound to be my brother’s keeper to that extent. I just don’t, for a risk that statistically small.
If we want to protect our kids, let’s ban swimming pools, stairs, mopbuckets and all wheeled vehicles. Those kill thousands times more kids every year.
Seems to be a huge spectrum of possible responses being ignored here. Is anaphylaxis the minimum standard of “allergic to bees” here?
I was stung on the lip by a wasp last summer. I had an “egg” of swelling about the size of a large prune on my lip that took about 2 days to subside. It might have gotten larger, but I eventually thought to take some Benadryl orally after the swelling had gone on for about an hour.
The pain was a hell of a lot more than “ouchy” for me – I’ve had second-degree burns before, and IMHO, the pain level was similar. I’ll keep considering myself (apparently mildly) allergic to at least wasp stings, even if I may not need an epipen and a trip to the ER when stung.
Hmm…baby with a rash on its butt. IANAPediatrician, but Occam’s Razor would certainly lead me towards…diaper rash.
I think the soy milk thing is intriguing. My own son was mildly colicy as a baby, and we switched him to soy formula. It seemed to help. But it could be a trendy solution with long-term consequences (and my son has no problems with dairy, now. Or peanuts.)
:eek: Pain and swelling from a wasp sting?! Oh, dear, that’s terribly unusual.
Funny, I was just thinking “Peanut Challenge” would be a fascinatingly surreal name for a candy bar.
:dubious:
Why Not’s the one essentially bragging about juggling live pissed-off scorpions … and using sea urchins as stress balls … and hand-catching Portugese Men O’War for sport … and adding curare to his salsa for that oh-so-spicy kick 