…or in my case, keeps the doctor employed.
Of all the allergies to have, I get the one where I can’t eat fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s an adult onset thing. I’ve had pollen allergies for most of my life, and somewhere in my thirties I developed some food allergies. The reaction is most intense with a few certain foods, but is present in many many foods. It’s very annoying. I’ve googled it before, trying to find out what the problem is, but didn’t find anything definitive. At first I thought it might be pesticides, so I tried organics. It wasn’t pesticides. I found that apples, cherries, and hazelnuts cause the most severe reaction. But I love apples! I proceeded to torture myself by trying different varieties of apples and learned that some bothered me less than others. Or so it seemed. I could eat Braeburns for a while. And then not. I discovered Cameo recently, and had three successfully, with no reaction. Last night I tried one, and ended up with blisters on my lips and tongue and swelling and itching in my throat/pharynx. Very.Annoying. I haven’t had such a severe reaction since I tried to eat cherries a few years ago. The list of offending foods is long. Apples, cherries, hazelnuts, celery, lettuce, carrots, peaches, pears, nectarines, apricots, plums. Some of these things I eat anyway, because how am I supposed to live without salad I’m not so heartbroken about the fruits because they’re sugar rich and I need to be careful about diabetes. I have now discovered there is a name for this syndrome. Yes, I have a syndrome. OAS. Oral Allergy Syndrome. My self diagnosis is that I have birch and alder pollen allergies with cross reactivity OAS. At least now I know.
I wish I could eat apples, though.
