Actually, it’s not as goofy as it sounds. There is a product called the Grossan Nasal Irrigator Tip that you attach to a WaterPik and flush the nasal cavity with saline. It works about 8 out of 10 times. I don’t know the url but you can google “Grossan”
It’s odd that people can will refrain from disagreeing with someone who claims to talk with ghosts in the interests of being “open minded” but the moment someone says that they’re allergic they turn into Mr. SkepticInvestigator.
Then what are these people doing in a plane? What if a passenger has brought their own nuts? And how does serving pretzels solve the problem? There are people that are allergic to wheat.
LifeOnWry
Are you being sarcastic, or do you really consider RD to be a reliable source of information? And how do you know that smoke and perfume don’t contain proteins?
I agree with everyone who has been saying that part of the problem is the difficulty people have understanding the variety of allergic reaction types.
I usually tell people that when I tell them “I’m allergic to peanuts. If I eat even just a trace of peanut, my throat will swell shut, my lips will turn blue, and I will die. Death is highly over-rated.”
Usually, that does it. People now are really aware of these issues. I agree, it makes eating out basically impossible. When we go to the theatres, I bring my own snacks. I’m extra careful. I carry 5 epi-pens. Those buy me about 45 minutes until an ambulance can get to me.
I’ve told this friend that I am no longer going to eat at their place. They can come to me if they want to see me. I’m not putting my life in danger. Screw them.
My housemate understands the impending sense of doom that overtakes us all when we go into anaphylactic shock. He had to stab (!) me with the epipens about two years ago - the ambulance rushed to us after he jabbed me and called 9-1-1 but it took them 15 minutes to get here. We’d gone through two epipens before they got to me, and then it took a few hours to stabilize me. Choking to death is not fun.
Regarding law and knowingly giving someone something they are deathly allergic to: I remember hearing of a case (wish I could find the cite!) where a young boy was threatened by schoolmates who ran after him with a peanut-butter sandwich. The kids were accused of attempted murder. There was another case here in Ottawa (kid I know, too) of two bullies who spread peanut butter on the inside of a railing up a staircase knowing one of the girls in the school was severely allergic to peanuts (this was middle school) just to see what would happen. They were suspended, then expelled from that school. I’m just glad Katie’s sharp nose picked up the smell before she touched it.
Regarding planes: Most of us just keep clear. In order to react and go into anaphylaxis, the peanut particle (whatever) has to enter our bloodstream in some way, shape or form. Most people who are allergic to peanuts will panic just at the smell of them, often enough to send them into something akin to an asthma attack (which, in some circumstances, can be equally life-threatening.) This being said, I’m not for an all-out food ban. Not at all. I don’t even ask restaurants to guarantee me that they won’t kill me. I don’t ask food producers to write "peanut free!’ on their products (nowadays, everything “may contain traces of nuts” because people want to protect their asses and not get sued.)… All I ask for is that my friends, and my family, not try to kill me.
Elly
<tongue in cheek> Well Elenfair, if you’d just try to get over your allergy, you could stop inconveniencing people, and they wouldn’t feel the need to trick you into eating the offending item. </tongue in cheek>
I’m sick of people who seem to think I’m allergic to basil to piss them off. Yeah, I’m going to veto the suggestion we share a pizza ('less you want it white) or have pasta with tomato sauce on it forever. No amount of your griping that you wish that I could eat things with basil in it is going to change the fact that I can’t. And I hope I’m getting the wrong vibe, because some people seem almost to want me to suffer through a reaction so they can eat pizza or whatever. Why can’t I just order a sub at the pizza shop if you really really want pizza? Jesus, we don’t need to eat the same thing, we’re adults after all.
Thus far it’s a moderate allergy, though it had gotten progressively worse before I became more careful about avoiding basil all together. Coming in contact with anything that has basil in it causes rashes and itching where ever it touched my skin, and burning and itching inside my mouth if I actually ingest it as well as vomiting. I’m not going to go through that so you can enjoy a pizza, sorry.
I thnk they got rid of peanuts on airlines because pretzels are much cheaper and not high fat.
Well except for the not-totally-uncommon occurrance of death of animals riding in the cargo area. If I had to travel with a pet and could not bring it in the cabin, I wouldn’t fly, personally.
Though in certain rare cases, allergies will go away. I was strongly allergic to cheese for a long time – eating just a pinch of mozzarella would give me a mild headache, eating a slice of pizza would give me a migrane and cause powerful vomiting (no, it wasn’t lactose intolerance, as I drank milk and consumed other dairy throughout this period). People didn’t seem to understand why I didn’t want to eat pizza – I was (and still am) a picky eater, so I guess it’s a little bit understandable, still, they weren’t the ones with incapacitating headaches. At any rate, after avoiding all cheese products for nearly 5 years, I accidentally got a sub with cheese on … and nothing happened. I just needed to avoid it for a long time. Still don’t like to eat it though, as the association is too strong.
I can understand why it’s a different issue for peanut allergies though.
I’ve had allergy-avoidance problems while hospitalized, lucky me.
I have a fairly serious latex allergy; if I get near a latex glove/balloon/latex condom/etc., my lips blow up & itch, my face itches, my eyes water, my chest tightens, I wheeze. Same thing happens if I ingest avocadoes, bananas, chestnuts, macadamia nuts, etc.
I’ve never gone into anaphylactic shock, but my allergy has worsened over the years, with progressive exposures.
The last couple of times I was hospitalized (1999 & 2000) for surgery, the staff went to great lengths to inform everyone of my allergy; there were “No Latex” signs on the door to the room, the foot of my bed, the wall over my bed and my hospital bracelet, as well as a note in my chart.
At least once a day I had to interrogate some doctor, intern, phlebotomist, etc. who breezed in about their equipment (gloves, catheters, other tubing) so that I would not have a reaction. Often, people forgot more than once. I had to be ever vigilant while attempting to recover from surgery.
The reaction of the personnel would typically run along the lines of, “Oh, silly me! Be right back!”. Yes, silly you. Silly you who could have caused me to go into ananphylactic shock this time. Good thing we’re in a fucking hospital. Next time, why not bring a banana split topped with macadamia nuts encased in a big latex dish and do me in for good??
[hijack]
Sonofamother. You people are medical professionals! As far as I know, you’re job is to help keep me healthy, dammit! I understand you’re overworked and can’t be expected to recall everything about every patient - that’s why there’s a “No Latex” sign on the door and (in case you missed the door one) at least two others in the room.
However, I am a patient. That means I’m probably not feeling my best and am possibly less alert than I might otherwise be. It’s less than comforting to have to police my caretakers for something it’s been made clear I’m very allergic to! What if I wasn’t so alert/suspicious?
And on the condom front…I have one thing to say;
Polyurethane, Benjamin. Polyurethane.
[/hijack]
(Sorry about the hijack, but…I needed that. :p)
I feels ya. I’m allegic to a certain pharmaceutical muscle relaxant (as I unhapplily found out once), and If I take it I too may die of anaphylactic shock. I’m pretty lucky, though, because while I have been offered them before people don’t usually try to slip them into my food.
If it was something as common as peanuts, I would probably be in the habit of telling everyone I met:
“Prav, this is Bill.”
“Hi, Bill, nice to meet you. If I ever eat peanuts I will die. Please do not bring any peanuts anywhere near me.”
pravnik, thank you. That’s a great way to tell people! Regarding the whole perfume/incense/smoke thing, if it’s not a true allergic reaction, will someone tell me why I get the same symptoms from cats (presumably a real allergin), tobacco (according to the above answers, an asthma trigger), and heavy perfume (same as tobacco)?
I’m not seriously, deathly allergic to anything, although I might try to kill anyone who locked me in a musty, dusty basement with five cats, if I could see for sneezing. However, my SO throws up when he eats onions, so we have fun times trying to explain to waiters that he WON’T eat something they just scraped the onions off of. Sigh.
Cripes, elenfair, your friend absolutely sucks.
Lissla, so, will Geoff have to get rid of the kitties?
The latex thing-that happened on an episode of ER-a doctor went into shock because of the gloves.
Latex kills. <g>
** Opalcat ** regarding animals in the cabin - my service animals, and our SAR dogs who need to be mission ready fly with their handlers (free of charge) in the cabin. Allergic people are usually moved seats. According to the airlines here, in Canada, if someone complains about a service/assistance animal being on board, the disabled individual is given preference over the inconvenienced traveller, and said traveller is offered a later flight. Their reasonning is simple: it’s easier to change travel arrangements for the ordinary, everyday traveller (even the business traveller) - not so for the blind, or anyone using a service animal.
Other than that, the friend mentioned in my first post has been told off, and told to take a flying leap.
E.
While I have nothing to compare to the others here, I’m allergic to a certain (common) class of antibiotics (cephalosporins).
Plus, I have ear problems that lead to me commonly getting ear infections.
Those two facts have lead me to get prescriptions changed because I was allergic to everything I had been prescribed. My physician knows, and it’s on my chart in plain English, but obviously nobody looks at charts these days. One would imagine clinics being better at basic stuff like this.
Hey, is that a jab at my “special relationship” with Stevie Ray Vaughan? 
Oh good, I get to tell my “allergic but not really” story. A few years ago, when we were living on an AF base in Japan, there was a lady who lived a few houses down from us, that had three kids roughly my own kids ages. She took great pride in announcing how allergic all her kids were to everything. I don’t know, maybe she was trying to make them out to be more special or delicate or whatever.
I have a cousin that actually does have poly-allergies, and she had a great deal of trouble with failure to thrive as a child, and always looked kind of sickly, so I was a bit skeptical about this woman’s claims, given that her children were all very obviously healthy and thriving, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe she just did an extraordinary good job managing them.
Anyway, one day the oldest child, a boy about my son’s age, was in our yard playing with my son. They announce that they want to walk to the shoppette and buy ice cream. Okay fine, after sending neighbor boy back to his house to get permission from his mom, I gave them money and off they go. I look out the window about 15 minutes later, and here they come strolling down the street, eating ice cream. Only neighbor boy was eating…a NUTTY BUDDY! AIEEEE! One the things his mom had told me he was terribly, deadly, instantly allergic to was peanuts! Being an EMT, I know how swift and deadly anaphalaxis can be, so I called the base ambulance, then ran outside, grabbed the ice cream from his hand, and prepared to rush him into my house to make him lie down till the ambulance arrived.
He looks at me like I am insane, and when I explain what I am doing (You’re eating peanuts! Your mom says you are terribly allergic!) He looks at me, rolls his eyes, and says “Oh, my mom says that, but I’m not, really.” Ummmm…okay.
The ambulance then arrives, I’m trying to explain to them why I’ve called them for an apparently healthy child, and his mom comes running out of her house demanding to know “What the hell is going on!?” I explain that, based on what she had told me (her exact words "Oh, none of them can even get near peanut butter, it sends them into shock!), I had assumed her son’s life was in danger, and had taken the appropriate action.
She starts screaming at me, demanding to know why I hadn’t checked with her first, saying that his supposed deadly reaction to peanuts “Comes and goes, it only flares up sometimes”. Uh-huh. :rolleyes:
Luckily, the paramedics were very understanding, told me I had done the right thing, and suggested that Neighbor mom get her son “re-evaluated” by a doctor for his supposed allergy.
So, I do take people who claim they have allergies very seriously, but I have no sympathy for anyone who claims to have terrible allergies that “come and go.”