What food am I allergic to?

Factual Questions
1

Yesterday I broke out in itchy, red hives. It was pretty unpleasant. The doctor gave me some medication and they’ve gone away, except that I still have red splotches. I don’t have any known food allergies, and considering I’ll eat anything that’s edible, it’s hard to imagine I wouldn’t have discovered this before. I couldn’t think of anything I had eaten that I hadn’t eaten before, until I remembered some Keebler cookies.

So, my questions are: How likely is it that I’m allergic to something in those cookies? Since they’re chock full of additives, could the additives be the cause? How could I find out if the cookies are the cause? (I don’t want to throw out a perfectly good box of cookies.) Is it possible I suddenly became allergic to something I had eaten many times before?

2

Lactose intolerance sorta works that way.

you might want to try eating cookie again. Or you can go into the doctor and have an allergy test. It’s rather unpleasent I hear, but it’s quite effective.

3

Everyone seems to get hives at least once in their life for no discernable reason. I don’t recommend allergy testing unless it becomes recurrent.

4

I don’t think I want to eat the cookies to find out. The hives were extremely unpleasant. Also, I think the medication I’m on suppresses the hives.

I definitely want to avoid allergy tests. I faint at the thought of needles being stuck into me.

Qadgop, are you a doctor? That would explain why you gave the same unsatisfactory answer my doctor gave. But thanks.

5

We docs specialize in unsatisfactory answers to unanswerable questions.

6

BTW, lactose intolerance most emphatically does not work this way. You will never get hives from LI. You might possibly get a hive-like reaction from milk protein allergy, but that is a completely unrelated illness. However, if you are eating other foods that contain milk protein and don’t get hives, then you can probably cross that off the list.

7

Most pople have a slight negative reaction to the implantations of the alien mind control chip. It only happens once, so no big worries.

The illuminati will be along shortly to delete this thread.

8

Forget “I don’t know.” Next time I don’t know something I’m just gonna say: “your question is unanswerable.” Throws the burden of incompetence back on the questioner. Nicely played.

Anyway, the op raised an interesting point. I thought it was usually natural things (to grossly overgeneralize) that cause allergies - I’ve never heard of an additive allergy. (Except maybe people with multiple chemical sensitivities, whatever that is).

I mean what kind of cookies were they? Were they peanut or some kind of nut cookies?.

9

Another couple of possibilities are:

  1. A product on your skin - hair spray, shampoo, lotion. whatever.

or

  1. Stress. I used to work at a part-time job that I hated. I knew it was time to quit when I started breaking out in hives every time I worked there.
10

Don’t be so hard on Qadgop, uglybeech. He’s just giving the correct medical diagnosis. My hives are idiopathic. (I appreciated my doctor using a big word with me. It means the cause is unknown.)

I found that at least one food additive (FD&C Yellow No. 5) is known to cause allergic reactions. That’s why the FDA requires manufacturers to list certain additives on the package.

I can rule out soaps, detergents, etc. I haven’t gotten any new products in months.

Stress… yeah, I’ve got that. Getting rid of it is not an option.

I decided that I probably wasn’t allergic to the cookies and ate one of them about an hour ago. As I write the red splotches are intensifying and becoming slightly itchy (despite the two different medications I’m on). I think I’m calling the doctor tomorrow. Thank god for good health insurance.