I Have A Latex Food Allergy...

...and I just wanted to take a moment to talk about it. While some of you probably have not heard of this before, I can assure you that it does exist, is very serious, and in some cases, it can be deadly.

The first sign of it showed up over 10 years ago when I had my surgery. While I had many internal sutures, I had no external ones and was only held together with surgical tape. During the healing process, I had to have the tape removed and new tape put on many times. I was in horrific pain because I had decided to go cold turkey on the pain meds, but the ensuing allergic reaction to the tape just added to my misery and healing process.

Recently, I've noticed more and more that my skin has become very sensitive to certain clothing, soap and even my headboard that is made out of redwood (you should see what my hands look like when I wake up in the morning and they have come in contact with the wood all night...yikes!) In fact, last year I broke out in a severe case of hives from some laundry detergent residue left behind in the washers that I used at a local laundromat. Not only was it embarrassing, but it took almost two months for it to heal and disappear. I thought I was going to have to get stock in Cortaid!

I started to really connect the dots when my husband and I would eat seven layer dip. Now mind you, the ingredients in that seem fairly harmless, or so I thought. However, every time I ate it, I would get horrible stomach and digestion pain that would literally lay me out on the floor. It lasted for hours. I tried it several times and each time, I had the same reaction.

After some research and sorting out the individual ingredients in the dip, I found out that I had a latex food allergy to avocados. What solidify this was another reaction that I had to the latex in my sports bras. Every time I where them, I have another skin reaction where the latex in the bra touches my skin. Let me tell you, how not pretty that is...ugh! Oh...and lets not forget trying to use surgical tape with gauze to cover up large scrapes, burns and other assorted whatnot when I get into trouble from time to time.

So, needless to say, I don't eat avocados anymore, despite the latest health craze about them (the counter person at Subway tried to put it on my sub today and I  had to yell out at him to STOP! Good gravy! What does a person have to do in order to communicate the fact that I cannot eat avocados, especially to those who can't speak English very well? That's a topic for another post later.) Since I've stopped eating avocados, I've had no issues. I even eat dip (made without it) and have had no problems.

But my skin reaction to the latex...well that is still an issue.  I am going to see an allergist and a dermatologist after my holiday to see what can be done about this and a few other things that have been bugging me.

In the meantime, if any of you have experienced similar reactions to the ones I've described, please take them seriously. For more information, please see this website here, and for heaven's sake, go see your doctor!

Who'd have thought this little food could cause so much trouble?!!

Wishing you allergy-free moments!


 



Liked anything you see here? Then contact me, Susan Dusterhoft at todaysworkingwoman@hotmail.com. I am always looking for more books/products to review. I can also provide assistance with blog writing!