Food allergy, yes it is scary!

A few of my friends sent me a link of this straits time article about a lady who has passed on due to food allergy in an attempt to caution me to stay away from prawn as I too, had my 3rd food allergy episode in late May and I thought I should share my story too.

I had my first food allergy episode about 8 years ago and honestly, it was scary! I recalled that I took the company bus out to east point and had long john silver, one of my favourite fast food of all times. As I love to go for new combo sets, I ordered the ultimate seafood combo set which comes with a seafood patty containing prawn, sea urchin, squid and etcs. After lunch, while I was making my way back to the office, my eyes felt weird. I asked my friend if my eyes look weird and she said I look ok. With that, I went back to my office (we are not from the same department). As I sat down, I felt a puff below my eyes and I was wondering if it was because the eye shadow accidentally gone into my eyes and caused some irritation. 

Shortly, as I had to answer nature call, I went to the washroom. Before entering the cubicle, I did a quick check in the mirror to see if I look ok and I look normal though the eye shadow seem to be fading off from my eyes. To my horror, when I came out of the cubicle, my eyes were swollen! It was so bad that I could hardly open one of my eyes and I look disfigured! Before I knew it, I was having running nose. I didn't know what was happening! My first thought was, what if I look like this forever? Maybe I need a plastic surgery! I then bump into a colleague who told me that I am having food allergy and that I should go to the clinic to have a check.

Upon reaching the clinic, though there was only 1 patient ahead of me, while waiting for my turn, I finished all the tissue papers in that clinic (yes my nose felt like a running tap!). When the doctor saw me, he said that I needed 2 jabs (anti histamine and steroid) to bring the swell down. At the same time, he started measuring my pulse rate and blood pressure to ensure that I am ok because I am suffering from severe food allergy. After the jab, he asked me to continue to stay in the clinic for another 30 minutes as he needs to make sure that I am ok before he discharge me. He also say that it is life threatening and that should it come back within the next 48 hours, I need to go to the A&E immediately. When I heard this, I was shocked and I can't help wondering how can eating Long John Silver be life threatening? He also gave me steroid pills and anti histamine and I would need to continue to take these pills to suppress the food allergy. As sea urchin was the only new seafood I have never had, I then think that perhaps I am allergic to sea urchin.

About a year later, I suffered my second episode of food allergy. This time, it was from Mos Burger butterfly prawn which happened to be one of my favourite item from Mos burger. I was totally caught by surprise by this as I always eat butterfly prawns! On top of that, people who knows me know that I have been a prawn lover since young. So how can it be prawns?! I went to Raffles Hospital when I had my second food allergy and even argued with the doctor when he said that I should not take prawns anymore. Honestly, I wasn't convinced as I eat prawns almost everyday, so how can it be prawn? However, I stopped when he say that unless I want to risk to having cardiac arrest, I should stop eating prawns altogether. He also cautioned me that the future episodes will be faster and more severe. It was a tough and sad decision for such a prawn lover like me. But I stopped as I dare not take the chance.

I was then referred to National Skin Centre to do an allergy test. From the blood test, it is said that I might be allergic to segmented seafood (prawn, crab, lobster). The allergist explained that the allergy test has a scale from 0 to 6.  0 means that you are not allergic to the item, 1-2 means that it is ambiguous and 3 and above means that you are definitely allergic. For me, I am not allergic to shell fish. However, it was 1-2 for segmented seafood. He then scheduled me for a prick test to help ascertain if I am allergic to segmented seafood. The prick test results showed that I am not allergic to segmented seafood so I asked if I can start eating prawns again. To my surprise, the answer was, since the blood test says it is ambiguous and the prick test says I am not allergic, the result is non conclusive. The only thing I can do it a food challenge on my own as they can only perform food challenge under a controlled environment if the allergy scale was 4-6.

He shared that in the controlled food challenge, they will be giving the patient the food in the form of capsule and once the patient develop food allergy, they will immediately provide medical attention to the patient. I told the doctor that I had dried shrimp so can it be considered as food challenge? He said yes. At the same time, a doctor once mentioned to me that her son is also allergic to KFC pop corn chicken but can eat other chicken. She went on to explain that sometimes it has gotta do with the way it is processed. My aunt also told me that as fast food seafood is not fresh and might have been preserved using some chemicals, so perhaps I can refrain from having them but I should be able to take fresh prawns and I started eating prawns again except for fast food prawns. Everything has been well for the past 5 years or more...until recently...

That fateful day, my mum got me mee goreng from this Zhi char stall near our place. As my mum rarely cook these days, I eat from this stall as many as 3 times a week sometimes. One of my favourite is their mee goreng. My mum bought the mee goreng at 6+ but I only managed to have it at 10. After eating it, within 10 minutes, my tongue felt itchy. My eyes didn't feel right too. At the moment, I was thinking, gosh, this feeling is so familiar! I knew it was food allergy again! With that, I quickly changed and went to the 24 hours clinic. This time, besides developing the food allergy within 10 minutes (previously it only start developing after 20 minutes), I also had itch all over! The itch was really unbearable. Besides that, in my previous episodes, the swell comes down within 2,3 hours after the jab. However, in this episode, my eyes was still quite swollen after 10 hours and I had to go to the A&E. I even had a slight rebound few days later! Also, few days ago, I also had a minor allergy reaction (itch and redness) after taking some medications. 

I was then referred to another hospital again to check on my allergy and tomorrow will be my second visit as the doctor has requested me to do some data collection before she decide what is needed to be done. I shall share the details in another post. 

To anyone with allergy reaction, please take it seriously and get it checked!