Sue and Tharini were the ones who drew attention to this. I wished to contribute in time of the food allergy awareness month. I am no expert but I list down here some of the allergies I have come across.I had not come across food allergies much, expect in the novels which talked of peanut allergy and even death through that.
My mother is allergic only to panner which causes her face to break into small pimple like eruptions and my chithi ( aunt) is allergic to yam which causes in her a similar reaction.
Sometimes colacasia( arbi/ chaypankezhangu) can cause severe itchiness in the throat. But that is a matter of luck. There is no way to tell as far as I know till you begin eating it. And it is only a mild irritation. Not life threatening or any such.
Since I moved to Chennai post marriage, I have encountered a few more food allergies.
I know that asthmatics avoid cucumber/ snake gourd/ bananas during periods of wheezing. My MIL is one such.
Navy's cousin has milk intolerance to such an extent that she has to avoid not just milk but anything with even traces milk - so she has never had chocolate, cake, curd, milk, bread, butter, cheese, pizza, naan, white gravies, etc. This causes a lot of anxiety among us when we go out to eat because even a roti dough may have some milk or a seemingly tomato gravy may have cream in it. There have been occasions when she was nearly choked due to the restaurant not taking our request seriously enough.
It is only when I saw her that I realized how distressing and disruptive an allergy could be.
10 comments:
Yay !! me first to comment.... just would like to add to your list...
My Mom is allergic to egg.
any form visible or invisible and even the smallest trace would make her sick and she would suffer for the next 12 hours !!!
(not that we eat egg everyday but cakes and some icecreams are a BIG NO for her)
Kathirikkai allergy is most common, illa? A lot of people I know get itchy when they eat katthirikkai
Oh yes, cheppankezhangu - itchy throat happens!
i am allergic to kathrikai- but that is purely a psycological version
For severe allergy problems, you can approach immunologists (sometimes dermatologists also) and undergo allergy desensitization tests. They may ask you to have periodic injections. Yes as you rightly pointed out, severe allergic reactions can be sometimes fatal.
Did a post on this myself just now. I think this is a great drive & helps us all learn so much.
Now a days allergy is so common, my nephew has strong allergic reaction with the dust, even i have an allergy with dust and so many other things.
I am also staying in Velachery:)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,259010,00.html
oh talking of allergies...my appa is allergic to -----HOLD UR BREATH
1. tomatoes
2.urad dal ( uzhundu)
for more than 35 years, he has been going thru this. he cant eat vadai. dosai/idli...am sure this is not a common allergy...if he eats any food with even slight traces of the above said items, he gets a itchy throat, starts sneezing continuously..eyes red and mouth ulcers..
oh poor uncle- must be terrible to think up new things for break fast
We often dismiss allergies as reactions at the skin level. The fact is that allegies can be life threatening and should never be taken lightly.
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