Laugh if you will, but it is serious and DAMHIK

[journeyman Mick]

Like the title says, laugh if you will but this is serious (but funny in retrospect) and Don't Ask Me How I Know!

Some people (maybe even some of you) are allergic to aspirin. A person with this allergy probably won't know until they take one. When they do they may experience Anaphylaxis or Anaphylactic shock. :eek: Their face will swell up till their eyes close and their throat and chest will constrict making breathing extremely difficult. This may happen within 15-20 minutes of taking a single aspirin. Unless treated promptly with large doses of steroids, antihistamines, oxygen and adrenalin the person may die. Of course this person will make sure that they don't take any more aspirin once they've had anaphylaxis.

However......

What this person may not know, and probably because their doctor didn't know either is that about 50% of people who are allergic to aspirin are also intolerant of Salycilates in their diet.(this is not a reliable figure BTW, no large scale research has been done, but do you want to take the chance?). Aspirin is Acetylsalysilic acid and used to be derived from willow bark. Unbeknownst to a lot of people (including, it seems GPs) is the fact that a lot of common foods contain large amounts of salycilates. Mandarins, almonds, green capsicum and rum all contain large doses.

Now just suppose that someone gave an aspirin allergic person a bottle of "moonshine" rum. Unbeknownst to the moonshiner or the recipient of the bottle this rum had absolutely huge amounts of salycilates in it. Person has a few rums over the space of a week, wakes up one night with intolerable itching in all the really sensitive areas :( . Goes to chemist, gets steroid creams and anti fungal creams and applies liberally. Of course it's winter and mandarins are in season, so person tries to eat healthily, scoffs a few mandarins each day, plus, as usual a hand full of almonds each day as well. Things go from bad to worse, intolerable itching and burning, so a bit of aloe vera is applied - always works on burns. It's wonderfully soothing but soon the itching and burning is back with a vengeance, and the skin that's had aloe vera applied is really angry red and raised.

Off to see the doctor, he's not sure what it is but bombards it with doses of steroids, antihistamines, stronger steroid cream and more anti fungal cream - just in case. Orders a few blood tests for allergies just to check too. Poor patient is really suffering and finding it hard to sleep so a stiff rum before bed each night is consumed to help. By this time the patient has itchy hives over most of his body and is going out of his mind. Blood tests come back showing dust mite allergy but the doctor believes it's something that's been ingested due to the symmetry if the hives. After hours of web surfing sites dealing with allergies the connection is made :o .

Almonds, mandarins, rum and aloe vera all contain large amounts of salycilates! Not to mention red apples, grapes, dates, sultanas and tea. If you are aspirin allergic (or know of someone who is) do a web surf and find out about salycilates in food. Know what to avoid, you may not be salycilate intolerant, but maybe you are. Maybe you'll only get a bit of a rash, but possibly you'll have anaphylaxis! :eek:

Just Don't Ask Me How I Know Okay?

Mick :o

[Ben from Vic.]

So......

You've had a great weekend then? :eek: :eek:

Hope all's better. :)

Ben.

[journeyman Mick]

week and a half! :mad:

Mick

[Ben from Vic.]

oh dear. :eek:

You shall now be know as "Mick the lab rat" (or was it the missus?)

What was the name of that early 1900's scientist that experimented on himself? :D :D

I suggest you pop down to the local vet and get yourself an Elizabethan collar. :D

:eek: Just noticed you can't drink rum any more :eek:
Egads man, life's hardly worth living!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

No worry. Stiff upper lip and all that, chap.


Ben.

Ps. Get well soon. There's still plenty of reno-rescues that need your advice

[kiwigeo]

Almonds, mandarins, rum and aloe vera all contain large amounts of salycilates! Not to mention red apples, grapes, dates, sultanas and tea. If you are aspirin allergic (or know of someone who is) do a web surf and find out about salycilates in food. Know what to avoid, you may not be salycilate intolerant, but maybe you are. Maybe you'll only get a bit of a rash, but possibly you'll have anaphylaxis! :eek:


Mick, you dont want to be going anywhere near a cricket match either.....the bats are made of willow.

Doesnt sound like youre a happy chappy....hope you get it nailed.

[Chesand]

If someone has a problem with Aspirin they may also have a problem with Ibuprofen (Nurofen Advil etc).

Stick to Paracetamol for pain.

Get well soon Mick

[Driver]

Mick

You may have hit on a solution to a problem that's been bothering my wife for a couple of years. Nothing like as badly as the experience you relate but enough to be a bloody nuisance for sure. We'll investigate a bit further. Thanks for the heads-up and I hope you're feeling a lot better.

Regards

Col

[Eastie]

Rum often gives me a terrible headache, but the onset is normally delayed by 6-12 hours ;)

[Tristan Croll]

Strictly speaking, it's not a true allergy - the immune system is incapable of recognising molecules as small as aspirin and the salicylates. It's actually what is known as a "sensitivity" - however, the end result is still bloody horrible. Good luck with your troubles!

[ndru]

Sorry to hear about your malady :( . Hope it clears up soon!


Almonds, mandarins, rum and aloe vera all contain large amounts of salycilates! Not to mention red apples, grapes, dates, sultanas and tea.

Include kiwifruit in your list. Each piece has the equivalent of approx 1 tablet of aspirin's worth of salicylic acid. The bloody stuff seems to be in just about every other fruit, too!

Slightly OTT: Cats generally also have the same reaction (anaphylaxis) to large doses of salicylic acid. If you're fond of cats, don't give them fruit or aspirin. Definitely don't give them Paracetamol (acetaminophen) as it is toxic to them and can cause liver, kidney, heart and pancreas failure. On the other hand, if you have a cat problem in your neighbourhood...

[PAH1]

Strictly speaking, it's not a true allergy - the immune system is incapable of recognising molecules as small as aspirin and the salicylates. It's actually what is known as a "sensitivity" - however, the end result is still bloody horrible. Good luck with your troubles!

The immune system is able to recognise such small things, although it usually ignores them. Specifically anaphalaxis is mediated through IgE and is a true immune response, hives/rash is also indicative of what an allergy specialist would regard as an immune response.

This whole "intolerance/allergy" thing irritates me as I have it as well. Sit down at a restaurant and say " I have an allergy to garlic and onions etc everything that belongs in the oinion family, all citrus and chocolate" and see what they are able to serve you, what they try to run past you and hope you don't notice and how little staff generally know about what they are actually serving.

For salycilates you will also find, tomatoes, aged cheese (blue is even worse), red wine etc. Another problem is that beast 621 and 635, MSG and Calcium glutamate, both are non specific allergy stimulants and make even trace quantities of trigger compounds very much worse.

You have my sympathy, however if you change your diet to avoid those trigger foods your health will improve so much you will not know yourself.

[Caliban]

Mick
I know this from doing the hard yards with kids withfood allergies and asthma, have researched thoroughly, have some excellent books at home will pm you when I get there, one is called "friendly foods" which deals with salycilates and a few other chemical groups you may need to know about eg amines. Another is called "It may be allergy and it can be cured". As I said I'll post the details for you when I get home, worth reading if you don't wanyt any more unfortunate 1.5 weeks

[AlexS]

Mick, hope you're feeling better now. I know from bitter experience (severe case of jaundice caused by blocked bile duct) how crazy a severe all-over itch can drive one. At least I could have a glass of anaesthetic.

[journeyman Mick]

All,
thanks for the replies & well wishes. Feeling much better, even went down to the shed today (didn't actually do much though). Got lots of books from the library on the subject and downloaded lists of all the foods to avoid. I only listed the ones I had been unwittingly eating. One thing I have learnt from this and all my wife's illnesses is that most doctors only target symptoms. You've got symptom "A", well give you drug "X" because it fixes that symptom. They are simply not trained/haven't the time/inclination (take your pick) to try to actually diagnose what the underlying problem is. This is where the internet is a wonderful resource, access to lots of information that doctors just won't find for you. Anyway, good health to all,

Mick

[Caliban]

Mick
Hang in there buddy, the missus too.

[Cliff Rogers]

Hey Hovo, PAH1 & Mick, I'm interested in the diet/food remedies...

I have "intolerance/allergy" or immune response to several of the things that
have been listed. (plus a stack of other things too)
The response varies but the ones that make me itchy or super sensitive are
citrus, rum, coke, animal hair (cats, dogs etc), & prawns. I can't even
use prawns (or cats :D ) for bait without getting itchy fingers.
There are other things that make me sneeze or block up my sinuses (cats) &
then there are other things that just make me feel crook if I eat them. (cats)

For anyone with the itchy response, I've found the too much coffee &
not enough sleep (they go hand in hand) make the problem worse.
A 'natural' remedy that I found that works for me is a walk on the
beach in the moist salt air. ( I think it helps the stress levels too)

PS. for the cat lovers... I joking OK... :rolleyes: I'm just allergic to them.

[journeyman Mick]

Cliff,
sounds like you might have a couple of seperate allergies/sensitivities, possibly dust mites and salycilates & more. I know I'm allergic to dust mites and that tends to make you sensitive to cats - not necessarily the cats themselves, but there's often heaps of dustmites associated with them and their homes. As soon as this all settles down (almost there) I'm getting some more allergy testing done.
I've got a friend who almost died from an anaphylactic reaction to a tick. After a lot of investigation he worked out that he hadn't actually gotten over all the food allergies he had when he was a kid. So his whole system was battling all the foods he was eating and couldn't cope with the tick venom. Eliminated all the baddies from his diet and is currently undergoing de-sensitivation to the tick venom.
If you haven't already it might be worth getting some blood tests done to see what you're eating, drinking or breathing that's making you sicker than you need to be.

Lots of salycilates in rum and most citrus fruits, plus more than a little coffee is not good. Lots of sleep and plenty of down time walking on the beach or playing in the shed is V.good :)

Mick the allergy master :rolleyes:

[Ian007]

Mick,
Sorry to hear of your sad and sore tale. pun not intended
as you cant have rum now what about adopting the "Jack lives here" moto :) :)

Cheers Ian :)

[Cliff Rogers]

Yeap, I've had heaps of all sorts of tests done... even went on a desense
program at one stage... that was a bit of a waste of a lot of hours....
I knew about the dust mites, there is also another bug that one Doc called a
'human flea' but when I asked an entemologist about it, he had no idea what it was.
It causes itching & is worse around fabric furnishings, lounge, carpet,
curtins, rugs, cushons & is made even worse still when you have animals
(pets) inside your home

I have a list of things as long as your arm to steer clear of but this salycilates
is something I hadn't heard of til now.

As a converted rum drinker, I can tell you that I don't have problems with
Red Wine or Tooheys Old, thank goodness for that. :D

[journeyman Mick]

Ian,
I'm not actually a big rum (or anything else) drinker, so I'm not too worried about that. What does worry me is that I may now be sensitised to salycilates which means I could get a similar (or worse) reaction from a small dose, say a handful of almonds or a kiwi fruit. There's no way of knowing it will happen or not. Plan is: minimise all salycilates in diet; get allergy tests done and eliminate any foods from diet that cause problems; get an adrenalin pen (gizmo for self administration of adrenalin); when feeling on top of things eat some salycilate rich food. Hopefully I won't have full blown anaphylaxis, but if I do I can jab the adrenalin in and get myself into an ambulance in time.

Mick

[bitingmidge]

Crumbs Mick...it ain't a happy time health wise for you guys! All the best!

Having been through similar stuff at about your age, I can only sympathise, it's amazing how all things conspire to get you when you are down... at one time they thought I had EDKTM (that's Every Disease Known to Man) and put me on a pancake and pizza diet.....because they were the only foods they could slip under the door and they were afraid of catching whatever I had, so wouldn't come in.

Once I could walk again and regained partial use of my eye and had enough short term memory to walk more than a few paces in any direction without forgetting where I was going (true) and only had to deal with Chronic Fatigue (!), my local GP started to inject me with a course of monster vitamins and secret herbs and spices. On the occasion of the eighth and final visit to his surgery he was on holidays, and an elderly locum was there.

This guy read my file, looked at me in a sort of tsk tsk tsk kind of way and told me he could fix me.... I told him I was pretty happy at that prospect...start right now!

He told me to give up dairy products, alcohol, cut down on coffee, eat a reduced fat diet, and take moderate exercise.

When I told him that I don't eat dairy products, drink alcohol, average three cups of coffee per week, have limited fat in my diet and was walking five hundred metres per day even if that took two hours (I was pretty crook!), there was a sort of considered stunned silence.......

After a few minutes of scratching his chin...he looked me square in the eye and said:

"Well your just about F&*$#ed!"

Which I think was medical speak for "drop your strides and cop this injection...it may make you think you're getting better".

From the tone of your posts you don't need advice, but: Never give up, and keep learning. Doctor's don't have the time or energy.....but they are useful for getting access to treatment.

Cheers,

P
(Who carries adrenalin just in case, but ironically has only ever needed it while travelling with a couple of doctor mates!)

[Kris.Parker1]

Mate, in the States guys get paid to test different things. I hope someone was paying you. LOL

[Cliff Rogers]

Hey Kris, what was the bluey for on this topic???? :(

Are you a cat lover too??? :rolleyes:

It seems that everytime I mention being allergic to cats,
someone takes offence & hits me with a bluey...
I'm not a cat hater, just allergic to the bludy things.

[craigb]

Cliff,

A blue dot is just a response from a new member who doesn't have enough "power" yet to give you a greenie.

At least that's my understanding :)

Craig

[PaulS]

Cliff
check out the FAQ section on rep points
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item

As Kris is a new member he cannot yet give out red or green points, so they are blue...

Paul
PS Craig you beat me to it

[PAH1]

It seems that everytime I mention being allergic to cats,
someone takes offence & hits me with a bluey...
I'm not a cat hater, just allergic to the bludy things.

Same thing happens around here when I mention the fact that cats and aspirin go well together.

This whole allergy thing is becoming a major health problem, in the news this week they mentioned something like 25% of the population had some environmental allergy (excema, food allergies, hayfever etc). I was told that I would eventually lose the sensitivity to the trigger foods, only trouble is that someone forgot to tell my immune system that, 12 years after first diagnosis I am still unable to eat onions without ill effects. At least the severity has decreased.

[Cliff Rogers]

OK, I understand now... I think(?) :confused:

It's just that the other blueys(greys) that I've received have been for
neg reps for cat comments, I guess I just jumped to the wrong conclusion. :D

[AlexS]

Q: What's worse than being allergic to cats?
A: Having a wife who's allergic to them.

If I was allergic to them, I would have said "No cat. That's that". But daughter said "Awww, isn't it cute...let's keep it." and SWMBO said yes. Now daughter's left home, cat hasn't and SWMBO snores like a chain saw thanks to cat allergy.

!@#$% cats!

[Toggy]

AlexS,

Maybe it's the cat allergic to itself & doing the snoring.

You could always put a couple of aspirin in its milk. Loooong sleep & no snoring.

Ken

[Kris.Parker1]

Sorry about that alleged bluey. If it affected your rating I apologise, I didn't think it would.

Cheers

Kris

[Cliff Rogers]

Sorry about that alleged bluey. If it affected your rating I apologise, I didn't think it would.

Cheers

Kris

G'day.

Nah, I didn't know what it meant, I do now... :D