My personal thoughts about life with a disability and all other things I consider important in my life.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Latex Allergy Shows Up Late

Well, I'm having a fine and dandy spring. I won't go into details right now because I just keep shaking my head about it.

BUT - have, by process of elimination, found I am becoming more and more allergic to latex.

Wanna know HOW I figured this out- that's the long part of the story, but unprotected elastic has been making me break out BIG time. Just figured that out. I have 2 socks wrapped around my waist under my undies right now. Sub undies. Crap - only me.

Here's what I just found out about co-allergies to latex:

Guess what are co-allergies to latex/rubber?

"avocados, bananas, kiwifruit, papaya or peaches" - all have same or similar proteins to latex.

Now, I've noticed bananas lately - really making my mouth sore, and obviously if I eat too many peaches, and definitely kiwi.

http://dmd.nihs.go.jp/latex/cross-e.html

food allergies ranging from itching and pruritus around the oral cavity (oral allergy syndrome: OAS) to generalized urticaria and even anaphylaxis.

List of the Suspected Vegetables
"banana, avocado, potato (sort of. I just don't cook them for myself, but eat them if someone else makes them), tomato, kiwi, chestnut, walnut, passion fruit, pear, grapefruit, mushroom, bell pepper, mango, pineapple, celery, cantaloupe, apple, papaya, almond, buckwheat, fig, lettuce, peach, orange, peanut (have needed to elimate, just haven't), strawberry, pepper, mustard, watermelon, bamboo shoot, carrot, coconut, apricot, loquat, peppermint, soybean, cherry, nectarine...

OK - the highlighted ones are mine - the ones I have stopped eating just because they do something non-allergically adverse to me - or so I thought. That's just a little too freaky for me.

So - as of today, I'll eliminate most of these starting today to see if things settle down.

I am no happy. Are most of these nightshade plants?

Crap. Am on methyl pred right now and it's helping. You have no idea how distracting ITCHING is until it happens to you and you can't get away from it.

AND - read the section on food allergies - they're starting to classify them better so it isn't just anaphylaxis.

1040PM
It seems like every year something new happens with my health. And it's rarely, if ever, good.
I've always been confident about living until 100. My childhood wasn't very healthful, tonsils were the culprit. So I figured I was certain to have a great adulthood.

So now I have the vertigo. I don't think anyone, doctors, patients, researchers, etc., have a clue to how much stress this constant imbalance, dizziness, cognitive dysfunction, vertigo attacks and everything else that goes with it puts on a body. I feel like I'm aging 2 years for every 1.

And every year, a new allergy. I keep trying to minimize them, but every once in awhile, I just can't. I see life in a more realistic perspective. I'm not going to live until I'm 100. I'll be lucky to make it to 70. How am I supposed to live life to the fullest, knowing how few years I have left if it's life itself making it so I can't?

Having grown up in the true American spirit of fairy tales and living happily ever after, I know that at age 41, disabled, increasing medical problems and virtually no way to socialize, I'm NOT going to find someone to call a life partner/husband/significant other. Considering the last one dumped me because of my allergies and then the vertigo, how in hell can I expect someone to accept me this way? I've seen it too many times that the woman is dumped when she gets sick. But by God she better stick around if the guy has something happen.

If, when I die, I find out there's no heaven, no 'reason' for this life other than to pass oxygen and carbon around, I will find a way to haunt every clergy person of every faith on the planet until they go insane for lying through their teeth at us sheep, saying there's a reason we are alive.

Ya think I'm tired?
Niters

Labels: , ,

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Okay - here I am - the tooth fairy, to bring you some hope. For everything but the life partner part. I say forget them - get more cats.

But, I have latex anaphylaxis from powder and skin allergy from elastic. It ratcheted up in a big way every time I had to go to the hospital. So....now anything they do has to be latex free, even the thing around my arm for blood. I know there's a name for it, but my brain is blown out.

But here's the hope part. As bad as the allergy is, I have NEVER had foods bother me. Ever. I've eliminated 'em and everything. And none of the foods have had a bad effect (that I know of). I break out in random rashes sometimes, and maybe that's some rogue fruit that I have been around (I mean food - not family members) - but that's about it for such a bad reaction.

No, I'm not downplaying it. You MAY have alot of food allergies. One of my kids did. But I'm hoping you won't and it'll "just" be latex. It tends to get worse and it can turn deadly with one contact. (I used to not be able to figure out why I itched after the ob/gyn and condoms - duhh.) So, be aware, and ALWAYS ask the dentist and the medical people ("Uh, is that latex?") even if it's on your chart. They forget.

AND GET A MED ALERT BRACELET PRONTO!!!

Love, S

6/11/2007 11:25 PM

 

Post a Comment

<< Home