Be Excellent To Each Other

I've had eczema and asthma ever since I was very young, but apart from that I'm also allergic to pollen (hayfever), dust and hard work. I used to be allergic to eggs and soya, too, but I grew out of that.

What I didn't know, however, is that I appear to no longer be allergic to milk in any form. The last time I was tested was when I was about four or five years old. My mum gave me a yoghurt to eat. A couple of minutes later I remember walking out to the hallway from the kitchen, falling to my knees and puking my guts out. I went into anaphylactic shock and had to be carted off in an ambulance.

Tests showed that I was allergic to caseine, which is the milk protein (most dairy allergics are lactose intolerant).

Over the last few years, however, I've been getting a bit lax and eating stuff that has had a small amount of things such as lactose, dried skimmed milk etc. What I had never touched is cheese or yoghurt (both very high in protein). However, a couple of years ago when drunk in Prague, I accidentally ate a sandwich that had cheese in it, or so Ange claimed. I didn't believe her at the time.

Fast forward to about a year ago. I decided I wanted to try milk products again, as it seemed there was a good chance I wasn't allergic to them anymore. The problem was that my mind had become so accustomed to rejecting anything that tasted like cheese, butter, cream, etc, that I was concerned that I would have a psychological reaction to them more than anything else.

So, Ange and I agreed that the best way would be to introduce it into my food by stealth and not tell me until the next day (I used to get a reaction almost immediately). It seems it has been completely successful. I have had quite a number of dishes with butter and milk in, and a couple of nights ago a lasagne with real cheese in the sauce, which was the big one. I even braved some milk chocolate yesterday and had a mini Milky Way from a box of Celebrations - the first time ever I'd tasted it!

The only thing that remains is yoghurt, but I'm fairly satisfied that if cheese isn't going to kill me, that yoghurt won't either. So yay, my body's finally fixed itself.

Anyone else with allergy stories? Have you still got them or did they go away?

Cat spit. Degree varies.

Severe hayfever. Enough to break nose veins so I shoot blood everywhere when I'm sneezing.
Asthma.
Playstation 3s.

I was fine as a child, but grew *into* asthma and eczema around 15. Came on all of a sudden as well, coughing fit in the night and *BAM* asthmatic!

I'm lucky with the eczema, only get very light breakout in the creases of my elbows and a tiny spot just under the collarline.

But, yeah, dust, pollen, cats and dogs make me wheeze, but I'm getting better with cats due to exposure at a friends house where we go quite a lot.

Food allergies? Nope. Lager makes me, shall we say... shit through the eye of a needle, but it's not bad enough to make me stop drinking it

My only one is Hayfever, fortunately, but it can get quite bad. Annoyingly, it disappeared about eight years ago, then came back a few years later.

Many a time have I been left with a bunged-up nose and eyes dripping with tears, but the worst time was camping with a few friends in a crop-field for a night during one of the year's pollen-filled months. I spent a total of about ten minutes outside that day before having to retreat to the tent when my eyes became so swollen and watery I couldn't open them, and I couldn't get a word out through the sneezes. It was truly, truly horrible.

I don't seem to be suffering too badly these last couple of years, though. A bit of itchy eyes, but nothing major.

Do/did you take antihistamines, MF? I find if I built up a good solid couple of weeks on those, my hayfever is hardly noticeable. Sometimes it goes away because of low pollen counts, or the 'wrong' kind of pollen is mostly prevalent that year.

I start taking them every day when the pollen and warm weather start rolling in now, regardless. I don't want to take any chances.

The outbreak I described, though: no. I thought I was over Hayfever, so didn't bother. Then it came on instantly, so I had no chance.

Heh, I can control my hayfever through SHEER WILLPOWER!

and Benadryl. That too.

It also means you're only ever asked to do your party trick once and not invited to the next night out.

Penicillin, possibly. Not one I really want to test, to be honest.

Eczema isn't really an allergy, but if you're counting that, then I have acute chronic psoriasis depending on the phase on the moon or some shit.

Like a werewolf?

Were...itch? No that's rubbish...

WIIIIITCH!

He's GINGER, man.

I have no idea but something doesn't agree with me. I think it may be stress related but for the last 3 years or so my cheeks have quite an angry rash on them. It tends to flare up occasionally to become almost scarlet but most of the time it's pale but visible - I look like a less irate Alex Ferguson.

I've tried excluding different things from my diet, changing soaps / shampoos, using facial scrubs, moisturiser. When I asked the doc about it she just looked at me funny.

Did you have your penis out at the time, or something?

Badger her* for a dermatology consult.



*Heh.

I'm apparently allergic to one particular cold virus that I get about once a year. Get symptoms a bit like Trousers mentioned above. Also swollen up neck-glands, whatever those are called.

Mushrooms make me vomit, almost on the dot, 3 hours and 33 minutes after I've eaten them. I'm stupidly sensitive, too. I once used a knife that the girlfriend at the time had used to open a packet of mushrooms on some cheese for a sandwich. 3 hours and 33 minutes later, I was kneeling before the porcelain god.

That can't be fun, guy.

In typical boring fashion, I'm not allergic to anything. I *used* to have some sort of hypersensitive nerves thing that grass or sudden temperature changes and stuff would set off, for which the doc prescribed Piriton. Whatever it was disappeared ages ago. Poppy seeds and biological washing powder (eating one, washing clothes in the other) used to bring me out in a rash of some sort.

These days, all I have is that my elbows are always very dry and very cracked, sometimes itchy. I think that's a circulation or hydration issue though - if I remember to spend ages rubbing them in the shower it eases a bit. Quite a lot of tonsilitis. Ooh, codeine fucks me up good though, until a few doses in. Like being pissed it is.

If you eat half a mushroom, does it take 6 hours and 66 minutes?

Bugger, I was going for a 666 thing, but that's 7 hours and 6 minutes, which is less the number of the beast, more the number of the breast.

Allergies to dust / dust mite and various pollens.

As a kid I had quite bad asthma / hay fever (eyes swollen shut at times) and the odd small patch of eczema

The asthma and eczema vanished as a teenager but I still had regular problems with hay fever.

However a few years ago the eczema slowly came back in small sections and and last year came back with a vengeance - I'm hoping the change in weather that's happening at the moment will allow it to calm back down a bit - otherwise I'm stuck with various creams and ointments and bleeding over most things in the house

You get used to it. Hell, Mrs Grim... is allergic to breathing, so I can't really complain too much.

...I don't think he got it.

[{Ginuwin] LOLFLAPZ

I'm allergic to some form of plastic or man-made fibre or something. When I was a kid, my mum noticed the skin on the bottom of my back and around my bum was much darker than the rest of my skin, and not just because I didn't wipe my arse properly. Turns out that I was allergic to something in the plastic they make school chairs out of and contact with those chairs was causing my skin to pigment. Sure enough, since leaving school and sitting on plush, cushioned office chairs the problem has gone.

Likewise I had an afterschool job as a cleaner at a local factory. Certain brands of rubber gloves would make my hands itch like crazy and come up in lumps. I still get really bad eczema on my hands and the skin on my hands is noticeably darker and more pigmented than the rest of my skin - when I'm wearing short-sleeved tops you can see a line at my wrists where the skin changes colour.

I'm also allergic to certain kinds of makeup, which I found out about after going to a James Bond party dressed as Blofeld. I'd nicked one of my girlfriend's eyebrow pencils to draw a scar down my face - after about an hour that whole side of my face had swollen and gone beetroot red.

Definitely Penicillin for me. I was treated at hospital when very small and it apparently made me puff up like a balloon.

Also fish abroad. If I eat it, it'll make me hurl without fail. Although doing the same thing in this country does me no harm at all.

Nothing makes me sneeze like Nottingham...

What doesn't like me?

I used to have hyper-pigmentation of the skin around my eyes, I looked like I'd been repeatedly punched in them - if I had, whoever it was did a damn fine job of bruising my brain just enough to amnesia me. So I had to rub steroids in them.

I should be a fucking super-hero after that (power: LOOKING AT THINGS), I'm well disappointed.

Edit: Wait, I'm unbelievably awesome at looking at the internet. Maybe it worked after all.

I'm also allergic to Richard Littlejohn.

That said someone on Popbitch says that had to sit next to him at a function and actually he was OK. But they ended up hating him even more as they felt it was quite possible the whole rabid kick the foriegners out thing was an act to get paid a mint by the right wing media.

Yeah, but were they a black, gay, Irish asylum seeker?

"You're not allowed to have an electric fire in the bath in case a queer sees it! It's political correctness gone mad!"

Richard Littlejohn is quite welcome to have as many electric fires, or indeed any other electrical appliance, in the bath with him as he likes. In fact, I would actively encourage him to do to this.

I avoid pet-owners. The fur of their creatures... Really has bad effects on me. Breathing-related allergies are much worse than food ones in practice, as it's harder to control what you ingest...


Beer gives me diarrhoea, so I know avoid it, although admittedly I've never been anyone who drinks except on rare occasions, so no big deal personally. I tell myself.

I still have some unidentified food allergy (allergies) though, as I've just developed irritable bowel complaint. Great! Did have a proper allergy test in a hospital a few years back, but that was focused on possible airbourne allergens only, which was admittedly quite helpful.

Allergic to Pencillin.

Used to have asthma when I was a kid, but grew out of it. Downside is, I've got the lungs of a 14 year old girl.*

Allergic to cats and dogs. Love them dearly, but I'm now paranoid about washing my hands after touching them, otherwise my eyes and nose are streaming all day.

Also can't eat venison. Which is a shame, because it is lovely. However, it goes through me like a dose of the salts.




* I keep them in the fridge. All week. Fish. Etc.

Yeah, that's how you found out, riiiight.

As a child I was allergic to something, I don't think we ever found out what, but we switched soap, bubble bath, washing up liquid, washing powder and it went away and has never come back despite being a person who now buys whatever is cheapest at the time. Occasionally I get blotches on my forearms and torso, it was quite bad in my early 20s and I used to have to put some steroid based cream on it, but then that barely did anything and I stopped, and then at somepoint the blotches faded, a few years ago they came back but much milder than before, and now they come and go and looking at my arms at the moment, I have mild blotches on the left arm, and nothing on the right. You wouldn't even notice it unless you were looking for it as it occurs on the border of the hairy part and the hairless part. I really don't know what brings it on, heat? stress? some chemical? some food? no idea! As it's not itchy and doesn't hurt, it doesn't really bother me too much.

Malc

I've always had hayfever, which sometimes can get very bad, but recently I've been using Flixonase nasal spray, enriched with steroids, and it has worked a treat.

I'm allergic to bees and wasps and other such stinging insects. I don't go into shock (or have not done so yet), but I swell up to a ridiculous size and look like a fool.

I'm also mildly allergic to strawberries, which make me sneeze and rub my eyes as if suffering from a bad hayfever attack. This is annoying as I fucking love strawberries.

I am allergic to alcohol. It makes me feel sick if I drink too much of it, may also make me sick.

Hayfever and ashtma. And in moments of stress i get some serious bouts of dandruff, and i still haven't found the optimal solution for it.