Do you really have food allergies or is it your hay fever?

Website design By BotEap.comI thought that God must have been punishing me for stealing. For the umpteenth time, I climbed over the fence into the neighbor’s yard and picked some of his ripe, golden pears from his tree. I brought them home and sat outside on my patio, and started eating them.

Website design By BotEap.comBefore long, my mouth and lips started stinging like they were on fire! I stopped eating my pears, but too late – before long I had a stomach ache and nausea, and that itch just wouldn’t go away. I’m over it, but can you believe that was the last time I climbed over that fence.

Website design By BotEap.comA few months later, it happened again. But this time, I was at my brother’s wedding reception and I wasn’t doing anything wrong: I had taken a nice red apple from the table and started eating it. I experienced those same symptoms again. Then came Thanksgiving, and oh! how I loved to crack and eat the nuts that were laid out in big bowls in every house… but you can guess what happened when I started eating them, right?

Website design By BotEap.comIn the space of a year or so, I found that I couldn’t eat apples, pears, nuts, coconut, lettuce, carrots, or almost any kind of raw fruit or vegetable. You can imagine how hard it was to explain this to my parents, who naturally thought this was just a cleverer than average excuse for not eating healthy food. I guess sometimes it was convenient, but more often than not, this problem prevented me from eating foods that I really enjoyed.

Website design By BotEap.comI got used to telling people, “Sorry, I can’t eat that, I’m allergic.” This didn’t cause any problems other than the aforementioned suspicions from my parents. When I was in high school, I remember the biology teacher questioning my claims that he was allergic. He made it clear to me that it was not like any food allergy he had ever heard of and that he was sure he was just being a picky eater.

Website design By BotEap.comThis condition continued to baffle me for several years and continued to cause me problems, sometimes surprisingly. For example, I was made to peel potatoes in the army, and I had terrible rashes from the potato juice that splashed on my skin, as well as my first asthma attack from breathing the fumes!

Website design By BotEap.comSo what was really going on here? Turns out my high school biology teacher was basically correct. In fact, my problem was caused by allergies, but NOT food allergies. Food allergies are potentially very serious, even fatal, reactions to food. Most allergy experts say that the foods that people are most often allergic to are milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts and tree nuts, and shellfish. People with food allergies should completely avoid the foods to which they are allergic. For some foods, this means not even touching them or being around the people who eat them. Fortunately, true food allergies affect a rather smaller percentage of people: Experts estimate that only 2 percent of adults are truly allergic to certain foods. For those few people, food allergies can be extremely dangerous: small amounts of peanuts, for example, have been known to cause life-threatening reactions and even death in highly allergic people.

Website design By BotEap.comTurns out my problem is something called “Oral Allergy Syndrome.” It is now known that people suffering from pollen-induced seasonal rhinitis, often known as “hay fever”, can cross-react with fruits, vegetables and even certain chemicals and synthetic materials. When I take a bite of a raw apple, somehow my immune system thinks I’m trying to swallow birch pollen! I don’t want to get too technical here, but my body interprets the shape of the protein molecules in that apple as similar enough to pollen to cause a weak allergic reaction. I say “weak” meaning compared to what happens to people with true food allergies. Certainly when I am suffering from eating a slice of apple it does not seem weak or minor to me!

Website design By BotEap.comIf you already know you have seasonal allergies and experience symptoms like the ones I’ve been describing, then there’s a good chance your symptoms are caused by Oral Allergy Syndrome (“OAS”). You may have never bothered to find out before. exactly which pollens cause your allergy symptoms, but if you have ODS it may ultimately be worth doing. There are well-documented lists of which foods and other substances correlate with which pollen allergies, so if you know exactly which pollens you’re allergic to, you can predict the foods and other materials that are likely to cause problems for you. Go to your doctor and request an allergy skin test, which is the easiest way to detect common allergies to pollen.

Website design By BotEap.comUnfortunately, there is no cure for OAS. Antihistamines can help with symptoms, just like they help with your other symptoms. Also, many people find that they can eat their favorite foods slightly cooked (just enough to break down harmful proteins) or even a little more or less ripe than usual. In general, though, you’ll simply need to identify the foods that cross-react with your pollen allergies and avoid them.