- egg
- poultry (chicken and turkey.. dont know about duck)
- hazelnuts
- pistachios
- pineapple
- grass
- cat fur (NOT cat spit - cat FUR)
- poison ivy (actually, anyone who reacts to this is technically allergic. some people do not react. but our case is extreme.)
- oranges
- capsicum (bell peppers)
between the three of us, the only overlap is grass and cat fur for both my son and i. the rest are spread between us.
the first four are my son, and it makes things a little difficult. hes not dangerously allergic to any of them, thankfully. no epi-pens in this house. and despite his nut allergy, he is NOT allergic to peanuts. he could eat a whole tub if he wanted. but one pistachio and he throws up for a couple hours and gets a rash. ditto a chocolate made with hazelnuts. any allergy is difficult (ever tried to avoid the pineapple on a hawaiian pizza?), but his seem specifically designed to make my life annoying.
egg wasnt too hard to deal with. the only time i eat egg is when its IN something (cake, cookies, cake, waffles, cake) as i find the flavour of it rather disgusting, so cutting it out of my diet when i was breastfeeding was a total non-issue - especially after we found no-egg powder (scroll down, its at the bottom). and after nearly 4 years ive got so used to using the powder instead of actual eggs, that i dont even think. hubby is very careful when he has eggs for breakfast, and critter knows that he's allergic and eggs will make him itchy, so he avoids them anyway. the only time ive eaten eggs since we found out about his allergies in feb/march 2005 is if i have pasta at a restaurant or something like pancakes/cookies etc out, or if i make cheesecake. when a recipe calls for 8+ eggs, i dont think the no-egg powder is going to cut it.
the poultry allergy is harder to deal with. im a definite carnivore (as is hubby) but if i eat red meat more than three days in a row i go nuts. i need a change. so we tend to have chicken or pasta at least twice a week. which is fine with the pasta - i just have to make do with eating macaroni instead of tortellini (eggs, and hubby wouldnt eat it anyway) - but becomes more difficult with chicken. we always make sure we have some sort of leftovers the kid can eat - even if its just sausages that we cut up and put in a bowl of baked beans. which he loves by the way. we also have to be very careful not to touch or kiss him until we've very thoroughly washed. if chicken, raw or cooked, touches his skin he breaks out in hives within a few minutes. many's the time ive given him a bath only to discover a bright red, raised, pimply looking hand print under his arm where ive lifted him. or kissed him goodnight only to discover a welt on his forehead when i check on him later. and it breaks my heart.
it makes christmas difficult too. despite living in a land where christmas day is always one of the hottest days of the year for some reason, and customary christmas clothes consist of sopping wet sweat drenched singlet and shorts, and fans are compulsory, and normal people have a seafood bbq and go to the beach where they can cool off, my parents always did a traditional english christmas dinner. with the roast turkey. and the million roast vegies. in the oven. and the hot ham. and until a few months ago we didnt have a functional air conditioner. and after 25 years, im just not sure i can cope with a turkey-less christmas. which means making separate vegies for the kid - so they arent cooked with the turkey. and making extra ham - so he actually has something to eat. and washing my hands a million times a day for the next week or so as i compulsively snack on the leftover turkey sitting in the fridge (no idea why it lasts so long).
by far the worst for my critter is the nut allergy. as i said before, peanuts are fine. he also has no problem with walnuts or almonds. but a single pistachio will have him vomiting for a couple hours and breaking out in a rash. half a guylian chocolate seashell and he complains that his throat feels funny, and then starts vomiting for a while (MORE FOR ME!!). and can you guess my two favourite nuts? sigh.
his reaction to cat fur seems to have decreased over the years. he no longers breaks out in a head to toe rash, just hives on prolonged contact areas. and his grass rash doesnt seem to bother him. (interesting - he gets a rash with no itch, i get an itch with no rash.)
my own allergies ive become so used to, i dont even think about them anymore. i dont like pineapple anyway, so discovering that eating it made my lips go numb and turn into balloons was only annoying because it happened. i just avoid hawaiian pizza wherever possible (and pick over it VERY CAREFULLY when its not) and dont drink tropical juice. some cats affect me more than others, and i know my limits. if the cat has been sitting on a chair, i dont, and if i touch him i wash my hands. blinking in a cup of saltywater works wonders to stop the itching and swelling if i somehow get got. and grass.. i just make sure i dont sit on it for very long.
hubby has also grown accustomed to his allergies. two of which are rather mild. capsicum gives him a stomach ache, so he just doesnt eat it. and oranges may or may not make him break out in a rash sometime in the week after he consumes them. UNLESS theyve been somehow diluted: food cooked in orange juice is fine; 1/2 water 1/2 orange juice is fine; he just cant eat/drink it straight. very odd.
by far his worst is the poison ivy. which i thankfully have never witnessed, as he's managed to avoid it since he was quite young. but as i understand it, the rash he gets oozes horribly, and he swells to the point his skin is almost ready to burst, its so stretched. NOT FUN, PEOPLE. thankfully poison ivy isnt common here.
i live in hope that my kid will grow out of his allergies, and fear that the uncooked one will have even worse. but we know how to deal with it, and deal with it we will.
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