Intolerances

[davywavy]

Chatting to a friend recently, she told me something about herself which took me by surprise. This in itself is unusual, given the rogues gallery of wierdoes and refugees from the funny farm who I seem to hang out with most of the time. I've grown inured to people telling me things like "Have I mentioned that I can rotate my limbs through 360^o?", or "There was this one time, at band camp...". This wasn't something salacious or freaky, though, just surprising.
We were chatting about what we had for lunch, and I said that I make sandwishes to save money and asked if she did likewise.
"Ooh, no", she replied. "I'm gluten intolerant."
"Uh?", I replied, intelligently.
"Gluten intolerant. I can't eat bread or pasta or anything like that."
"That's odd", I said in understanding tones. "Can't you, you know, eat a little bit of bread every day and build up a tolerance over time, like with arsenic?"
"Nope", she said. "It makes my stomach start digesting itself and makes me very ill indeed. If I ate a sandwich it could put me in hospital."

I was somewhat taken aback by this. I'd heard of things like food intolerances, but in my tough Yorkshire fashion I'd always just kinda assumed that they were the result of being a bit Southern and soft and not really something to worry about. The thought that Hovis = DEATH just wasn't something which had crossed my mind.

On slow news days, the newspapers sometime worrying articles about the rise in things like asthma and food intolerances and how they just seem to be more prevalent these days. I have to wonder if they're no more common than in former times, but that we're just better at both identifying and treating them now. It’s only recently that we’ve really noticed that sometimes things like nuts and milk can be fatal and so I have to wonder just how many people died of unidentified intolerances in history. As noted in a recent post, the Victorians seems to positively expect their children to die in a picturesque way on a couch talking about angels (a recent scientific study which I’ve just made up indicates that a child dies or an unidentifiable complaint on average every forty pages in any given Victorian novel), and so one wonders whether when Little Billy was put to bed with a diet of bread and milk to strengthen him up, he was actually being seen off by his joint lactose and gluten intolerances. There’s a cruel irony in that, I think.
Further back into history people seem to have died from all kinds of weird and wonderful – and downright inexplicable to modern eyes - things. Cause of death in the UK was first reported routinely in the 1600’s, and examination of the parish records of St Giles in the Fields from a single month in that century shows that amongst the obvious things like ‘plague’ and ‘executed for treason’, two people died of an affliction called ‘planet’. I’ve no idea how someone could die of ‘planet’ short of one dropping on them, and that strikes me as unlikely at best.
Unless it was something to do with their digestive system caused by Uranus.

Heh heh heh. Uranus. Gets me every time.

However, you hopefully get my point that medical science has only really just started identifying these complaints and so saying they’re on the rise might just be due to us simply seeing things which were there all the time but not recognised.
But what do I know?
A poll:


[Poll #1336067]

Comments

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

Meat and fish. You don't think I gave up steak willingly, do you?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

See? I'd never even suspect that someone could be intolerant to tasty tasty dead animals. How can they be wrong?

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

I don't get it either. My Dad, offal eating Yorkshireman that he was, was absolutely horrified when it became apparent that I just couldn't eat meat any more, not without becoming ridiculously ill.

I am a traitor to my blood.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You've turned southern.

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

I was born southern, the only one in the family. I am the black sheep.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Southerner! Burn her! Burn her!

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

It's okay, I passed most of the northerner tests when I was young. I had to.

Though apparently it's hilarious when I call someone a "mardy arsed bastard" in my nice Home Counties accent.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Southern is a blot on your soul that can never be erased, like original sin. The only way Southerners can be redeemed is if we crucify Geoff Boycott.

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

Okay, we can do that.

[(Anonymous)]

Never. Bringing Sir Geoffrey out of retirement is the only hope the England cricket team has! (I come from the other side of the Pennines and even I can see that).

If that is the price then I say damn the Southerners!

V

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Oi! I like to think I help out the wussy Southern corner, since I don't eat anything that isn't meat.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I have very mild allergic reactions - I think the doctor said it was "non-specific rhinitis" - I basically have a runny nose!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have a very mild skin allergy to Aluminium but I regard that as just being a bit of a wuss and so I hold aluminium things, just to show me.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

But do you ever listen to yourself...?

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

I was somewhat taken aback by this. I'd heard of things like food intolerances, but in my tough Yorkshire fashion I'd always just kinda assumed that they were the result of being a bit Southern and soft and not really something to worry about. The thought that Hovis = DEATH just wasn't something which had crossed my mind.

I used to have similar views too, till I got to know people with such allergies and intolerances - some of which were minor (you may remember a bald chap by the name of Morgan from the old-times in the Cam - he was gluten intolerant, like you find in the lager he'd down by the gallon and in the pizza he'd have after, but it just gave him bad guts and nasty wind...which was charming when we were crashing somewhere and all sleeping in the same room) and some of which can cause proper badness.

Personally I suffer from hayfever, and have a number of things as set off my asthma...but I rarely let that stop me, for example, making a fuss over a dog (the fur can make me be unable to breath). After all, there is no point in letting a mere medical thing stop you enjoying life!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

If I eat banana in any form I vomit copiously. This happens even if I don't know there is banana in it, which is why I suspect it is medical and not just psycho-somatic. I also get a nasty furry taste in my mouth, and stabbing pains in my throat and stomach.

This is not fun.

As an aside, I'm also latex intolerant. This apparently is quite common in people with banana allergy. I found out that I had a latex allergy in a manner that was just as undignified and shame inducing as you might think.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Well, the most undignified way I can think of finding out something like that would be wearing a latex Klingon mask at a Star Trek convention, so I assume it was that.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes you're entirely correct.

The scarring on my forehead has been a problem ever since.

[calligrafiti.livejournal.com]

The thought of living without bacon makes me sad.

[blue-cat.livejournal.com]

I have had bad stomache cramps from a spice commonly found in curry & thai food, and not just curry burn.

I get hayfever, alergic to my cat and possibly non-specific rhinitis too.

Oh, and I came up in a rash when given a specific antibiotic who's name I can't remember (written down somewhere).

I know of the following (each a different person): Melon, Fish, Cheese, Lavender, Mint, Onion, Mushrooms, Yoghurt.

[(Anonymous)]

One of Isa's friends is allergic to chocolate, which must be like having a horrible curse bestowed upon you. or being experimented on by Professor Calculus.

H

[medusa-nw.livejournal.com]

Lychees give me breathing difficulties, which is annoying as I love lychees. So I eat them anyway and make sure I have anti-histamines nearby. It's fairly mild, but I suppose it could get worse. Or not. This is really rather boring, I'll stop typing now. :-D

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Wheat (not gluten), Beef, Peanuts, pears and raw egg white are all nasty for me and give me eczema.

My wife is allergic to pineapple.

Some of the reasons that we get more of these in modern times: fairly constant chemical barrage (kids who lived alongside a motorway in Japan with lots of diesel fumes became allergic to cherry blossom) and also we live through a lot more of the diseases that would have killed us once (my allergies/intolerances came about after I survived a nasty measles attack in my teens).

[(Anonymous)]

Yup, there's a hefty body of evidence to suggest diesel particulates, especially the stuff on the 5-ish micron scale which modern engines make, instead of the 40 micron lumps of old, switch on allergies to other stuff.

[manywaters.livejournal.com]

I was born horribly lactose intolerant. I didn't have my first taste of cheese or chocolate until I was 9, when the digestive aids came on the market and made it to my dinky hometown. Until then, I grew up putting goat's milk on my cereal, or non-dairy creamer when the one store in town ran out of goat's milk. Non-dairy creamer on cereal is spectacularly disgusting, and there were months and months where I used apple juice in my Rice Krispies or just had toast. While I love cheese now, and like chocolate well enough from time to time, milk alone tastes very strange to me.

Oddly enough, fresh peaches give me canker sores, and I've allergies to a few medications. There's an anti-nausea medication commonly used in hospitals that gives me full body shakes...making for an extraordinarily annoyed x-ray technician.

[elbly.livejournal.com]

What are the digestive aids you use? I'm horribly lactose intolerant and can't find anything that helps.

[manywaters.livejournal.com]

I started with Dairy Ease, back when they were horribly chalky, Tums like things, and then went to Lactaid capsules. They helped me build up a tolerance over the course of about 3-4 years (and some intestinal distress, but us Dutch girls are pretty stubborn like that), and now I can do things like have milk with my cereal and such without them. Eating anything like a milkshake requires them to prevent Exorcist-like results, but it's nice to be able to have a cheeseburger or cereal without pills.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

I don't have any "one molecule will kill me" allergies, but a fair number of intolerances, of the "too much will make me ill" level.

Dairy products will give me what feels like mild bronchitis.

I used to have hayfever, but seem to have lost it.

I can't metabolise alcohol properly. I go straight from sober to falling over and throwing up after about 3/4 a pint - the change happens in the space of about two glugs. Fortunately there's a warning feeling of dizziness in between those two glugs that says "stop, right now". This appears to be due to a mildly malfunctioning liver (and no, I hadn't pickled it beforehand - that might have been worth it!).

Various things either in excess or in combination will set off IBS - "rich" foods, dairy, alcohol, plus possibly some as yet unidentified triggers as well.

The dairy reaction is odd - I had about a year or so when I could cope with milk, cream, and cottage cheese, but not even a trace of "real" cheese or yoghurt. That was almost certainly caused by antibiotics killing off all my "friendly bacteria". Now, I'm fine on the cheese and yoghurt, but only very limited quantities of milk and cream. Still, I'm more into pizza and curry than I am into desserts full of cream, so this way round is fine by me.

[tzel.livejournal.com]

I am violently allergic to mango skin. Not the flesh of the mango, I can eat that, drink mango drinks, no problem, but if I have to peel a mango I have to cover my nose and mouth with a cloth and wear gloves.

[purpleheather.livejournal.com]

Pet fur makes me sneeze & get itchy eyes, and I'm also mildly allergic to melons and pineapples - they give me a sore throat.

[ephrael.livejournal.com]

Intolerant to:
Fish and seafood, some artificial sweetners, cow meat, moderate amounts of caffine, fabic softener (when used normally, I don't eat it), erratic hayfever.
There is also an occasional non-specific skin irritation, the source of which I have not been able to identify.

In the great victorian novel I'd not have made it off the chaise lounge after chapter 3.

[lapinenoireuk.livejournal.com]

Fish ... me & fish ends up like a scene from the Exorcist. Green pea soup - the whole nine yards

Cheese is more a "feel distinctly queasy" thing but me & fish - don't go there

On a semi-related bit - I suppose you saw the story of the bloke accused of shutting down his employers production line by the scattering of peanuts.

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

The wife (the lovely drd2be) is allergic to all things fungus. Mushrooms, Cheese, Wine, Beer, etc.

Therefore she can only have hard liquor, and cheese only in moderation. Otherwise she gets an upset stomach with cramps like you wouldn't believe. This also makes things like the cat bringing a mild case of ringworm into the house an adventure...

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Oh, I would believe. For the benefit of those who may not: back when I was being Investigated to find out just what was wrong and whether it was liable to involve bowel surgery, there was a procedure.... you don't want to know details, but it was known to be sufficiently uncomfortable that sedatives and painkillers were offered as routine, and accepted more often than not. I declined, because I hate being "not with it" much more than I dislike pain. This was a good thing, and very informative, because I was able to compare the sensations then with those of a "standard" set of cramps, declare them near-identical in nature but not quite as bad, and thereby speed diagnosis. So yes, pain bad enough that a hospital thinks drugging you into submission is reasonable is something that can happen as a result of eating the wrong thing. Even allowing for me being a Southern wuss, I think we can agree that this is something one would normally prefer to avoid.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Amongst our regular RP group (that we cook for most weeks!) - we have the following ingredients that need excluding:

- Onions (Garlic ok in v small amounts)
- Raw milk products (so cheese is OK, but fresh cream = doom...I'm assuming protein deformation is responsible)
- Rennet (so vegetarian/soft cheeses would be OK, but a lot of hard cheeses are out)
- Red wine
- Mushrooms
- Fish
...um, I /think/ that's the lot..

Which considering that funnily enough, we just cook one pot of food to suit everyone, can be a bit challenging ;)

[applez.livejournal.com]

1. Tarragon
2. Wingnut Republicans. I get along, even with conservatives, but people who can't even articulate what and why they believe what they do, and are incapable of logically connecting their actions with their beliefs make me homicidal.

[(Anonymous)]

I have to be careful to not overdo my potassium intake, so avoid overdosing on stuff like bananas, melon, fruit juice, potatoes, etc. Not an allergy as such, rather the result of having dodgy kidneys.

V

[elbly.livejournal.com]

I'm intolerant to lactose - the most notable obvious problem it gives me is the ability to clear a room at 100 paces... there is no stench more foul. The less obvious but more hideous side effect of lactose is depression. Apparently this is something that's well known in psychiatric circles but doctors don't tend to encourage people to remove food-stuffs from their diet in an attempt to get them to cheer up because people are lazy fucks who would rather just pop a pill.

The best part of the irony is: The anti-depressants I used to take contained lactose, so I was making myself more depressed with the anti-depressants... f***ing great!

[bringeroflight.livejournal.com]

See, many of those dying of such things will have been marked as "bloody fluxes" or "vomiting" or somesuch similar.

[(Anonymous)]

"don't need to claim any sort of special interest to stave off the ever-lurking niggling thought that I might not be the centre of the universe."

I do. Can I have a bit of an allergy on tuesday afternoons? Preferably to something exotic and romantic.

D

[ddraiggwyrdd.livejournal.com]

I've told you about my garlic/onion intollerance and alllll the vampire jokes in the world have been said already.