Do you have any allergies?

The only major allergy I have, I developed very randomly one night in my teens. I was hanging out with friends, I always loved cats, and they had this adorable cat that got super sweet with me. Next thing I know, my eyes are almost swollen shut. I've never been able to touch cats again.

Adult onset allergies 5/7 major food groups. I might eat more potato's than samwise these days. I was likely allergic my entire life but it ramped up really bad last year (doctors assume covid). I wasn't aware that most of my symptoms took 12-36 hours to show, but now I can identify scratching, stomach problems and feeling flush with specific foods.

Lots of things. The main one is dust mites. Any clothes that I have in my closet or drawers that I haven't worn for a while will make me sneeze uncontrollably for an hour if I pick them up. Same if I get a spare sheet from the linen closet, if it's been in there for months, it will set me off. When I vacuum the house, I need to use one of those hypoallergenic HEPA vacuum filters. Dust mites are everywhere all the time, no matter how well you clean your house. Technically it is the shedded and disintegrated shells of dead dust mites that people are allergic to, it accumulates over time in places the mites live.

Other than that, I'm also quite badly allergic to black mold, and have a reaction to pollen and grass seeds.

I've never taken a proper allergy test, I've probably got others I don't even know about.

Apparently, I’m allergic to a specific type of antibiotic. I was given amoxicillin at the dentist and then went back to work as usual. About an hour later, I started shivering uncontrollably and had to go home. I ended up curled in the fetal position in bed for several hours, trembling and freezing.

My wife was understandably alarmed and mentioned it to my mother, who casually explained, “Oh yes, he’s allergic to amoxicillin—we found that out when he was a kid.”

Somehow, no one ever thought to tell me that little detail. Definitely something that would’ve been good to know before I took it.

I think I'm lactose intolerant. I eat some ice cream and I notice I just balloon up easily and going the bathroom back and forth. I just get so many false flags from my digestive system and I end up passing gas a lot just by having most things dairy.

I get mild symptoms at the begging of spring and fall, so i assume some type of mold but idk

Seasonal; not sure what, though. Oddly, it shows up around October and November, sometimes into December.

As a kid, I was allergic to everything. And lactose intolerant. Grass, trees, pollen, cats, some dogs, my allergy test had me wanting to scratch my back on the stucco walls.

I hit maybe 20 and all of it went away. I can roll in grass and dandelions and leaves, I can rub cats on my face (thank gawd), I eat tons of cheese. It’s amazing.

I'm happy for you. It usually happens the other way around.
- Thank you! I am very thankful and do not take it for granted. I met my first cat when I was 16 or so, and my eyes swelled up to almost closed. I did not stop rubbing my face on that cat every time I went over, though. I was so astounded that cats just exist.

No allergies that show up on a simple blood panel.

Except my sinuses are always runny so maybe I should get it looked into.

And my identical twin is allergic to tree nuts so maybe I should be cautious with those.

Main one is capsaicin. Causes inflammation in my joints, and bad digestive issues. But also have sensitivities to citrus and soy, and lactose intolerant.

I honestly think many people get sick from food and ignore it.

yes. maybe. I get congested certain time of the year and recently I have developed spontaneous hives which goes away with allergy medicine. not sure what any of it is.

Toxic coworkers

My grandfather has pollen allergies, my dad has pollen allergies, and recently I think I have it now bc I can’t stop sneezing when I spend more than 5 minutes outdoors.

I'm allergic to milk. Every time I tell people this, they think I mean lactose intolerant, and I have to clarify that I'm actually not an idiot

Same. Is surprising how people assume that given milk allergy is still one of the more common allergies.
Iirc the allergy to "milk" is actually to the cow/other animal milk protein
- Yeah I think it's specifically casein in my case

Alpha gal. It's a carbohydrate found in all mammal meat and products, save for humans and apes. Oh, also, you know "natural flavors?" So wonderfully vague. Most of the time, that means "carrageenan," which also contains alpha gal.

You get the allergy from a Lone Star tick bite, as if Lyme disease wasn't bad enough. Wear pants while hiking.

So you could become a cannibal with no problems, then?
I was reading your first couple sentences and was gonna ask “did you get a tick bite”
Luckily, it can go away eventually! I hope it does for you.

Bandage adhesive. It's very manageable, I just start itching after a while.

(Bandage? Band-aid? Adhesive bandage (making the thing I'm allergic to "adhesive bandage adhesive"?)? Not a native speaker)

You're good! Bandage is the "correct" term, band-aid is a brand but commonly used on other brands as well. If you kept it to the first half I would have had no idea English isn't your first language
- Huh, interesting. So how do you differentiate between this and this? Because to me those are two entirely different things and they're called different things in German. If I said "I need a bandage for my hand", how do you know which one I need (other than by looking at my hand to see if it's just a paper cut or if I'm about to die from blood loss, of course)?
I have that, too. Recently had a medical issue that was essentially a month-long open wound that obviously needed to be dressed the whole time. Absolutely brutal on the skin.
Tegaderm is less bad, I learned. Significantly more expensive but absolutely worth it for that situation. Showed up to the doctor with that on and was told "absolute overkill, stop using that" and then when I showed up the next time after following their instructions and using large Band-aids they took one look at my back and said "you should switch back to Tegaderm."
- You can get rolls of the stuff that you cut to size too. Its amazing badaids suck anyway. Basically change your bandage any time you see a sink compared to go swimming in the ocean with tegaderm and still keep using the same one.
- The waterproof 3M Nexcare bandages are pretty similar to Tegaderm, but for smaller cuts

Most plants, mold, mildew, cockroaches, milk, and nickel are the ones I can think of. Was funny when I got a prick test, they were training someone, so they were sorta happy I was so reactive to so many things because it meant they got to show how to rate the severity of all the dozens of bumps.

Milk, eggs, and cashews. Not lactose intolerant, and I always have to remind people that there's a difference. I haven't had an allergic reaction since I was 6 years old, mostly because I always avoid eating out. Too many people to trust!

I recently learned that I'm allergic to mosquito bites, it turns out it's not normal for them to swell up to an inch in a half.

for me it depends on the type of mosquito but the other day I got attacked by them while doing some photography and I had like 1-inch sized bumps all over my arms. Fun times.
Most other times they don’t get nearly as bad tho.

Sharepoint

Anything Microsoft, really
just variea in severity

Cats, suddenly as of ~7 years ago. Had three cats at the time, still have two, my allergy doctor is appalled that we "let" them sleep on the bed with us.

Dogs, also suddenly as of ~2 years ago. Pet a dog in the neighborhood, didn't think anytime of it and later rubbed my face while gaming. My eyeball swelled up painfully. Didn't make the connection until I pet another dog a week or two later, scratched my back and got a painful rash. We had just installed a fence to get a dog of our own

“Fragrances.”

Boy do I ever wish ingredients lists would specify what fragrances they’re using, then I’d be able to learn which scented products are okay for me to use without testing them individually.

It’s very mild but fuck is it ever inescapable. Everything I use can be hypoallergenic if I put in the effort but take one step into any building other than my home and it’s being cleaned with scented cleaning products and pumped full of air fresheners on top of that.

Also I’ve got seasonal allergies that are stronger than my fragrance one(s), so the outdoors often doesn’t function as an escape, either.

Scents are polutants. I hate them. So funny that some are called air fresheners.

Penicillin

How old are you?
I was diagnosed as a child wiþ an anaphylactic reaction to penicillin. It's been on my medical chart since I was 11. It was on my dog tags, in þe Army.
Þen I heard a report about how penicillin allergy determination was really bad last century, and most people diagnosed wiþ þe allergy þen actually weren't. So I went and got tested last year, and: I'm not allergic to it after all.
If you were diagnosed before 2k, it's possible you were misdiagnosed.
- That’s really interesting, I hadn’t heard that before.
  I’m almost 60.
  I found out that I’m allergic to penicillin when I was a child (in the mid-70s) and had an anaphylactic reaction. I still remember being intubated by the paramedics because I couldn’t breathe.
  Five years ago I had tandem stem cell transplants to treat myeloma (blood cancer), which completely wiped out my immune system. I had to have all my childhood vaccines over again, and I was re-tested for penicillin allergy, (because they thought that might have been erased too); it’s definitely still there.
- what's wrong with your comment? do you have a non-english keyboard or something?

Besides being allergic to basically every seasonal allergen, I'm also allergic to fish. Not shellfish, regular fish. It sucks because it didn't develop until my 20s.

None that I’m presently aware of.

Although as a young kid, I used to claim to have bee allergy, as I simply thought anything I didn’t like would make it an “allergy.”

I'm allergic to the sort of adhesive tape they use to attach IVs and such. They always use it anyway and I end up with annoying wounds because of it.

Also, while not technically an allergy, if I were to be administered succinylcholine, it would cause malignant hyperthermia, rhabdomyolysis, acidosis, and cardiac arrest due to a genetic disorder. Luckily I didn't have to find out the hard way.

Same, just pollen.

Yes, but I don't know what. There's a week in mid-Spring and a week in early Autumn (that we just passed) when I have to wear a mask outside.

Pollen? Fall could be grasses or conifers, deciduous in þe spring.
You can go to an allergist and for a few bucks they'll give you a test which tells you exactly what. Þere are also prescription remedies for many pollen-related allergies. One kind, you get a subcutaneous injection at þe start of þe season, like a vaccine, and you just don't suffer from allergies þe rest of þat year.
Or, if a mask works for you, þat's cool, too.

Mold. It's monsoon season here, on a good day I can feel the rain coming (due to spores lifted up and transported by wind before the rain arrives here). In that case I directly pop an antihistamine. On bad days I'm too late with that, which results in itchy eyes (mostly), sneezing, snotting, etc. Monsoon season is bad, rest of the year I have little issues unless I walk into a mold infested place.

I'm allergic to cold temperatures. AMA...everyone does.

Do you live in a warm country?
- Half the year, yes.
I know someone who is as well! They get a rash/hives. What about you?
- That's me too. I get itchy, deep red hives at contact points and exposed areas. Its annoying but manageable.
  If enough of me is exposed/come in contact with a trigger, I start to exhibit shock symptoms. Has only happened with swimming to date, but my allergy has gotten worse over time, so I expect I may experience some lightheadedness on a cold day in the future.

Bees/wasps/hornets, fresh cut grass, and capscasin.