I have read many articles about peanut allergies over the time that I have been allergic to peanuts. I noticed that most articles are not written from the perspective of someone suffering from the allergy. I am writing this article to help people understand how I feel, and to help other people like me feel like they are not alone. I am fairly unusual in that my peanut allergy was not officially discovered until I was a sophomore in high school. I had eaten peanut butter many times over the course of my life at that point. Then one day all the pieces came together and I discovered I was allergic to peanuts.
It was Halloween of 1997 and I had just gone trick-or-treating with my friends. We had gotten a good load of candy between us, though we were probably a little old to be trick-or-treating. We were going through our candy to see what we had gotten. I ate a Reese’s peanut butter cup, which wasn’t out of the ordinary for me. Suddenly my lips felt tingly and my throat itchy. Before I knew it, I had trouble breathing. I have asthma, so the first thing I did was reach for my inhaler. I used it once and it didn’t work, so I used it again. It probably wasn’t a good idea and I wasn’t having a typical asthma attack, but I just reacted. I felt a little better and it was late anyway, so I said good night to my friends. I went inside and took a little Benadryl for good measure since I suffer from environmental allergies and thought that could have been a culprit. I said good night to my parents, not thinking to tell them about what had happened.
As it turns out, I’m really lucky that I didn’t have to go to the hospital that night. I talked with my parents the next day and they suggested that maybe the peanut butter in the Reese’s had something to do with the reaction. I thought this over for awhile, at first thinking that my parents were crazy. Then I started to think about the past 6 months or so. I had been eating peanut butter on a bagel for breakfast fairly regularly. I thought I should have had a reaction before then, but then I realized I had been vomiting several mornings a week. I usually vomited after breakfast and usually it was after that peanut butter bagel. It had gotten to the point where my parents were asking me embarrassing questions and wondering if I was pregnant. Of course I wasn’t but they didn’t believe it at first. Now the peanut thing made sense.
At first I just avoided things that had peanuts and occasionally had a lick of something that had peanut butter in it, only to find that I often had trouble breathing and felt bad afterwards. After awhile I learned about how dangerous peanut allergies could be, and I stayed away from anything containing peanuts. I was afraid that over time my reaction would continue to worsen.
I religiously stayed away from anything containing peanuts but I didn’t read labels. By the time I had graduated high school, I started noticing that products like M&M;’s and Hershey’s bars made my lips feel funny, my throat itch, and made me have trouble breathing. I didn’t know why but I suspected it had something to do with the chocolate making process. I started doing research and I found out that many products are processed on the same equipment that peanut products are processed on. This infuriated me. Companies were using processing practices that could kill me and many other unsuspecting people, and we had no recourse. I felt like a victim. I didn’t know what foods were safe to eat. I couldn’t eat out because they didn’t have to tell me they used any peanut product or products that were processed on the same equipment. I tried to eat at home as often as possible, and was even afraid to eat at friends’ houses since many of them didn’t take my allergy seriously. At times, I even felt like someone could use my allergy against me if they were mad at me.
Finally, in 2006, the FDA decided it was time to protect me and people like me from companies that processed food on the same equipment as allergens or used allergens in food products. “Beginning on January 1, 2006, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required food labels to clearly identify any ingredients derived from the eight major allergenic foods. Manufacturers were required to identify ‘˜in plain English’ the presence of ingredients that contain protein derived from milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish (crab, lobster, shrimp, and so on), tree nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, and so on), peanuts, wheat, and soybeans” (Manore 107). I felt like a battle had been won.
I have had at least 2 peanut-related reactions which have sent me to the hospital since the 2006 decision. I ate a Chik-Fil-A, not knowing that they used refined peanut oil. The other was an incident in which I touched something after another person who ate a peanut product touched it. When exposed to peanut products, I often get hives. If I’m lucky, that’s all that will happen. Usually just a bite is enough to make my lips and tongue swell. Sometimes I can counteract those small reactions with Benadryl and an antacid like TUMS or a histamine-2 blocker which is something like Pepcid. When I’m lucky, that works. However, that’s not always the case. There are times where my throat swells and congestion develops in my lungs. Then I am forced to go to the hospital.
I carry an Epipen with me everywhere at all times, and really should go to the hospital every time I have a reaction but honestly I can’t afford to do that. I try to live each day without thinking about my allergy. I don’t eat baked goods from the grocery store and only eat handmade desserts at restaurants after thoroughly questioning the server. I don’t eat cake, cup cakes or even ice cream at birthday parties unless I can read labels. I can’t eat anything at school functions because they require all items to be store bought rather than homemade. I can’t go to family night at my child’s school because Chik-Fil-A is the food vendor. I am afraid of air planes because they serve peanuts. Embarrassingly, I must tell the flight attendant who then announces to the plane that they won’t be serving peanut products while standing next to me.
Every day I live in fear that I will be exposed to peanuts and go into anaphylactic shock. Most people are not very understanding of my allergy. Some people feel like they shouldn’t have to change their eating habits while I’m around. They feel like I should be the one to go away. I’m 1.3% of the population in America, and to most people I’m a pain in the butt.
Works Cited
Manore Ph.D., RD, FACSM, Melinda M. “Nutritional Label Activity.” Nutrition an Applied Approach . By Janice L. Thompson Ph.D., FACSM. 2nd Ed ed. San Francisco: Benjamin-Cummings Pub, 2008. 107. Print.
