Food Allergies

The hardest aspects of having food allergies is not being able to eat things you like, not being able to get out in the sun. Outdoors sometimes, if there's a lot of pollen around, you can't avoid it. If you have to go out, you have to go out.

I think the hardest aspects of having foot allergies is that the fact that I just can't try that, like, it just gives me... Like, I don't need it, but like, of course, as a human being who loves food, like, of course I want to try it. And it just makes me sometimes disappointed or sad the fact that I can't try it because my body will react weird or... And, like, I'll get allergic reactions. So I think those are my hardest aspects of having foot allergies.

I think the hardest aspect for me, uh, being someone with severe nut allergies, is, um, it's actually become automatic at this point, but just having to check literally everything. Anytime I go to a restaurant, anytime I go to a friend's house, anytime I go to the store and I want to buy something that I've never bought before, sometimes food labels just change and they start producing a food in another factory that produces nuts. And, uh, so just like, just those little things of just every meal having to be at least to some degree conscious of your allergy. And that can be a little bit, um, you know, a little overwhelming sometimes or burdensome, but it becomes automatic and it's not, it's not too tough once you get used to it.

This information comes on behalf of someone who wanted to participate in the Lifey app, just wasn't able to do the video interviews. In having my reactions, my body may react up to seven days after exposure with hives, and that happened twice to this individual. As for the throats or lips or things like that, I'm not getting a tingling or kind of a swelling sensation, but the unfortunate part about having these delayed onset symptoms is that you might not even be sure of the damage that you've done until after the fact. So you could be doing damage for weeks or months prior without a clue of knowing what's going on.

Honestly, one of the hardest aspects for me in regards to food allergies is just going places where I can't eat and like I have plenty of things options at home like there's so many different foods you can cook and a lot of restaurants unless it's fast food have a lot of options. So just kind of keep that in mind if you're a wedding or like just events or like anything there's so many volunteer opportunities that people are like come volunteer free food and for me that's not an incentive because I'm like I'm not gonna even be able to eat it and sometimes there's also jobs or whatever they're like food will be included and it's like well I don't even know if I'll be able to eat it so why would I apply for a job that I'm not gonna be able to bring my own food. It's definitely very scary to go to event and not know if you're gonna be able to eat anything and salad and with a side of fruit or ice is not food okay it's not a meal.

I'll be sharing some information on behalf of a participant for the Lifee app who just didn't want to do the video interview portion. The hardest part of having an allergy like this, or really unknown allergies, is the fear of eating or breathing a new food or a medication or a side ingredient or anything like that and having it cause an attack or scar tissue or something that would damage the body enough to where you would eventually need a feeding tube or could result in malnutrition or something like that. So having allergies that are so unknown yet so severe that basic nutrient needs are not being met.

For me, I think one of the hardest aspects of having allergies is just kind of feeling like a social burden. There are like some foods that I'm like, man, that looks really good, like, like restaurants, and they do like Reese's collaborations. I'm just like, wow, that looks fantastic. So it's like sometimes bums you out a little bit to not be able to eat like the foods that you necessarily want to. But mostly, I think it's the social aspect of like when people have gone out of their way to like help prepare a nice meal or when people like give you food or like treats at Christmas time. And like you guys have to smile and be like, Oh my gosh, like, thank you so much. It's gonna be so good. And you can either just like, know you're probably not going to eat it, but show that gratitude anyway. Or you kind of have to be like, Hey, this is made with anything that might like, kill me. And if the answer is yes, they kind of feel bad. And if the answer is no, or maybe like, maybe you still don't eat it. So it's it, it kind of has this social aspect to it. That's frustrating.