When i worked on a lab we had to identify tiny quantities of certain materials. The way we did it was with the serum (the liquid part of blood, after removing the cells) of rabbits whose immune systems had been made hypersensitive to those materials. Their antibodies clustered around infinitesimal amounts of the target material, making it detectable to us.
Immune systems do identify and react to extremely minute amounts of substances. So much that at the time i worked in a lab, (in the 1980s) most of the highly sensitive tests for things depended on some mammal’s immune system.
I’ve already been modded in this thread, so I’m gonna try to be careful here; (I think it’s a hijack, I apologize ahead of time)
What if your emotional support animal causes someone who is allergic to have symptoms?
Who’s rights are respected?
Does your need for emotional support supercede their allergy to that animal?
OTOH…I got my dog the ESA certificate. Thinking it was “official”, but who could prove it? Did not need a letter from a doctor or therapist. At all.
I paid $50, got a vest, a collar and a piece of paper with a nice gold emblem stamped on it.
It. Means. Nothing. It is a vest, a cheapo collar and a piece of paper.
I could certainly get a doctor to say I needed my dog with me at all times. I wouldn’t require my dog to be subjected to my trials and tribulations, as much as I’d love him with me. I don’t want to drag him to dialysis or Walmart or anywhere, really. He needs his emotions seen to. All these places could cause him upset.
He’s a very steady dog and knows his manners. Still. Not gonna.
It’s easy peasy to get a certificate.
Sorry again.
(P.S. I eat kale or spinach daily. I cannot tolerate broccoli or cauliflower anymore. Hurts my tummy. I’m wary of most cruciferous veggies now days. Don’t think it’s a true allergy, tho’)
The other thing about Emotional Support Animals is that there is no national standard as to what kind of animal qualifies. Service Animals have to be dogs or miniature horses. Any schmuck could claim their pet walrus was an ESA.
Since the actual topic of this thread is allergies, you’re actually more on topic than several of the previous posts. We’ve had enough about emotional support animals and service animals in this thread. If anyone wishes to discuss them further, please start a new thread.
It becomes a bit fraught on the edges, as these things always do. I knew (met her only once myself, but she was better known to some friends) a young women who had apparently been pretty violently raped and suffered some PTSD from it including panic attacks. Her psychiatrist-approved ESA was a massive bullmastiff, who went with her everywhere. He was a trained guard dog, very polite and well-behaved - I met them both at a show in a bar that otherwise didn’t allow pets.
She didn’t exactly have a medical disability and her pet really was an ESA. She was no more likely to be raped again then any other random woman and random women don’t bring bullmastiffs into bars. But his presence calmed her to the point where she was comfortable going out in public without the constant threat of panic attacks. Personally that’s an example of an ESA I would always want to accommodate.
You are not guaranteed an allergen-free world because you are allergic. For example, I can not go into a grocery store and expect it to be free of tomatoes for my benefit. I can not go into a restaurant and ask that it be tomato-free for my benefit.
If you are allergic to dogs that’s a problem because dogs can be encountered in public. You certainly can ban dogs from your personal residence although it might be problematic if you have a friend who is blind and has a guide dog. I would hope the two of you would be adults and work out something but you could neither insist your blind friend give up their dog nor could they insist their dog be admitted into your personal home.
When rights are in conflict we are left to figure out a compromise or work-around.
But you’re talking about an actual service animal not an emotional support animal. They are not the same thing. To the best of my knowledge ESA are not recognized by any law including the ADA.
[Moderating]
OK, @Tamerlane 's post was long enough that they might have started it before the mod note. But this post was almost three hours later. At this point, I think I need to make it a Warning.
Short answer, allergies are weird. Well, everything in biology is weird, but allergies are even weirder than much biology. We can find general trends and correlations, but very few absolute rules.
The official line is “loss of tolerance” - which they say can occur after lack of exposure over a period of time, with another speculation being “dual exposure” meaning exposure to the allergens through non intact skin. But both are just explanations without solid data. It is definitely less common than childhood onset. More often by far are allergies that get less over time, especially to dairy.
I’m not sure you are right about that. It’s true that it’s common for kids to outgrow allergies. But at my age, me friends seen to be acquiring allergies. I think acquired allergies are also common, and tend to increase with age.
I am allergic to cats. Have been my whole life. But my wife (now ex) had two cats and, while I never completely overcame my allergy, I definitely became more tolerant to the cats. The cats became more tolerant to me too. It bugged my wife that they liked me better
ETA: To be clear…I will not need a hospital. For me and cats it is sneezing and a runny nose and poofy eyes.. Nowhere near needing a hospital.
True more common than we have traditionally appreciated albeit still a fraction of childhood onset. From here:
The phenomenon of adult-onset food allergies has gained increasing recognition in recent years, with a growing body of research examining the etiology, presentation, and natural course of adult-onset food allergies [86]. One retrospective study found that 15% of all documented food allergies had onset in adulthood [101]. …
… There is a wide age range encompassing age of first reaction in adult-onset food allergy, though a peak appears in the early 30s (mean 31, range 18–86) [101]. In contrast to the male predominance seen in childhood-onset food allergy, adult-onset food allergy has a female predominance of 64% [101].
A key difference between the foods responsible for allergy in adults compared to children and adolescents is the increased prevalence of allergies to shellfish and fish. In addition, in US adults there are high rates of incidence of IgE-mediated allergy to wheat (52.6%) shellfish (48.2%), soy (45.4%), and finned fish (39.9%) [2•]. It has been speculated that one potential reason for the different foods responsible involves the frequency of ingestion, as many adults will report a period without recent ingestion of a previously tolerated food prior to the development of allergy [101]. In the same FARE survey referenced above, among those with adult-onset food allergy, tolerance was most commonly reported to tree nuts (13%), egg (11%), and fruits (10%) [102••].
That said also this from the same review:
While food allergies in adulthood are common, the proportion of adults who believe themselves to be food allergic is even higher. In a population-based survey of 40,443 adults aged 18 and older, nearly 19% of respondents believed they were food allergic; however, only 10.8% of those adults reported symptoms convincing for IgE-mediated food allergy, while an additional 8.2% reported symptoms inconsistent with IgE-mediated food allergy [2•]
So roughly 40% of adults who think they have a food allergy probably don’t …
… although some of that 40% probably do have something going on. It’s just not an allergy as defined medically. Not all of them, but some. Celiac, perhaps, or some sort of intolerance that is controlled by something other than IgE.
