Allergies today..

[Padders]

I'm going to throw a very big furry cat amongst the pigeons here................

 

I think it's because people now just seem to love to label things, there has to be a name and a reason for everything in the same way that instead of children just being naughty, or having no discipline or boundaries from parents they have got ADHD, Aspergers etc, and how some people can no longer just be down in the dumps or a bit fed up they have to have Depression, or Anxiety or Bipolar, there seem to be so many children with 'intolerances' now to every food group you can imagine, I can never remember that throughout any of my school years and it's the same with the allergies you mention - we seem to give everything a name and then try and follow this up with pumping medication down our necks - it's all very American!

 

Not completely true, but near enough.

[ll49]

I guess we can call it that, when people don't believe what is being taught in schools and what the NHS tells us; makes you wonder why so many people visit our wonderful NHS.

 

Or on the flip side why so many people abuse our wonderful NHS!

[El Cid]

I've had multiple allergies for the last fifty odd years. They were common then, but we didnt have BookyFace and so forth to let people know about them

 

Do you mean allergies whereby you come out in a rash, or more serious whereby you have convulsions and need intravenous antihistamines?

[medusa]

I'm going to throw a very big furry cat amongst the pigeons here................

 

I think it's because people now just seem to love to label things, there has to be a name and a reason for everything in the same way that instead of children just being naughty, or having no discipline or boundaries from parents they have got ADHD, Aspergers etc, and how some people can no longer just be down in the dumps or a bit fed up they have to have Depression, or Anxiety or Bipolar, there seem to be so many children with 'intolerances' now to every food group you can imagine, I can never remember that throughout any of my school years and it's the same with the allergies you mention - we seem to give everything a name and then try and follow this up with pumping medication down our necks - it's all very American!

 

 

You mean the people who have a verified case of anaphylaxis are labelling it?

 

My father had allergies severe enough to threaten his life several times when he was a child, and these have continued throughout his life. My partner also was hospitalised several times (in the days before EpiPens) and my brother in law is very specifically anaphylactic to tiger prawns (not king prawn, scampi, shrimp, soft tail lobster, langoustine, crayfish etc etc) and he has passed this on to both of his daughters.

 

 

We're not talking about people like me who puke and feel unwell after eating certain things, we're talking about people whose lives are actually in imminent danger after coming into contact with certain substances!

 

I think that there are dual reasons for this. The first is the well known 'too clean' hypothesis, and the second is that medical care has got better and so tendencies to have allergies can now be passed on down families in a way that simply wasn't possible before.

 

 

In the days before modern medicine people with a true allergy wouldn't survive childhood in most cases. Their first serious allergy attack, which may actually have been before full anaphylaxis, would have seen them kick the bucket as a quite small child, and that would have been put down to a whole selection of infections and sudden death syndromes, quite probably.

 

 

As a consequence of this, their genes would not have been passed on to a second generation so the tendency to have allergies would be self-limiting, in the same way that far more people wear glasses than in previous generations because modern optics make it possible for people who need glasses to live full lives, affording to have a job, raise a family and everything else. Because of this the genes for myopia (or whatever) are passed on in a way that they simply wouldn't have been in the thousands of years before, when not being able to see to run away from the wolf pack was a bit of a self-limiting condition.

 

 

If you've never had a baby projectile vomit everywhere, then pass out, swell up and stop breathing within 5 minutes, you're SO lucky I cannot explain it. This is NOT about food preferences- this is true allergy.

[ll49]

You mean the people who have a verified case of anaphylaxis are labelling it?

 

My father had allergies severe enough to threaten his life several times when he was a child, and these have continued throughout his life. My partner also was hospitalised several times (in the days before EpiPens) and my brother in law is very specifically anaphylactic to tiger prawns (not king prawn, scampi, shrimp, soft tail lobster, langoustine, crayfish etc etc) and he has passed this on to both of his daughters.

 

 

We're not talking about people like me who puke and feel unwell after eating certain things, we're talking about people whose lives are actually in imminent danger after coming into contact with certain substances!

 

I think that there are dual reasons for this. The first is the well known 'too clean' hypothesis, and the second is that medical care has got better and so tendencies to have allergies can now be passed on down families in a way that simply wasn't possible before.

 

 

In the days before modern medicine people with a true allergy wouldn't survive childhood in most cases. Their first serious allergy attack, which may actually have been before full anaphylaxis, would have seen them kick the bucket as a quite small child, and that would have been put down to a whole selection of infections and sudden death syndromes, quite probably.

 

 

As a consequence of this, their genes would not have been passed on to a second generation so the tendency to have allergies would be self-limiting, in the same way that far more people wear glasses than in previous generations because modern optics make it possible for people who need glasses to live full lives, affording to have a job, raise a family and everything else. Because of this the genes for myopia (or whatever) are passed on in a way that they simply wouldn't have been in the thousands of years before, when not being able to see to run away from the wolf pack was a bit of a self-limiting condition.

 

 

If you've never had a baby projectile vomit everywhere, then pass out, swell up and stop breathing within 5 minutes, you're SO lucky I cannot explain it. This is NOT about food preferences- this is true allergy.

 

No I'm not talking about those people at all, I'm talking about people who make something out of nothing as we know so many people do.

 

I have relatives who just love the idea of being poorly, even after health professionals have told them there is absolutely nothing wrong and they still go on fabricating something.

 

I heard a teacher the other day saying how many children in their school now have allergies and she specifically mentioned dogs, so I asked why is this, dogs are not a new thing.......she couldn't really answer.

 

So many people seem inclined to label something medically when it's not actually true.

[medusa]

No I'm not talking about those people at all, I'm talking about people who make something out of nothing as we know so many people do.

 

I have relatives who just love the idea of being poorly, even after health professionals have told them there is absolutely nothing wrong and they still go on fabricating something.

 

I heard a teacher the other day saying how many children in their school now have allergies and she specifically mentioned dogs, so I asked why is this, dogs are not a new thing.......she couldn't really answer.

 

So many people seem inclined to label something medically when it's not actually true.

 

 

That's not the sort of 'allergy' that is being discussed though. We're discussing medically verified honest to goodness life threatening allergy here.

 

 

 

It's bloody hard to fake anaphylaxis or patch test responses, and it is this sort of allergy that is hugely on the rise, irrelevant of how trendy it is to restrict your diet for any reason.

 

 

 

I understand that there are also people who claim to be gluten intolerant just because some health guru or other has made up the idea that it's bad for you, but that's completely by the by with respect to this thread.

 

 

 

This is one reason why I don't generally describe my food intolerances as allergy, apart from when ordering in restaurants when I need to get a message across, because they don't want me puking everywhere in their restaurant any more than I do. I'm not anaphylactic to anything (that I know of, anyway) and for that I'm more grateful than I can express.

[ll49]

That's not the sort of 'allergy' that is being discussed though. We're discussing medically verified honest to goodness life threatening allergy here.

 

 

 

It's bloody hard to fake anaphylaxis or patch test responses, and it is this sort of allergy that is hugely on the rise, irrelevant of how trendy it is to restrict your diet for any reason.

 

 

 

I understand that there are also people who claim to be gluten intolerant just because some health guru or other has made up the idea that it's bad for you, but that's completely by the by with respect to this thread.

 

 

 

This is one reason why I don't generally describe my food intolerances as allergy, apart from when ordering in restaurants when I need to get a message across, because they don't want me puking everywhere in their restaurant any more than I do. I'm not anaphylactic to anything (that I know of, anyway) and for that I'm more grateful than I can express.

 

You may be talking about medically verified allergies, but this is not how the thread started and it is the original post that I’m referring to.

[El Cid]

I think that there are dual reasons for this. The first is the well known 'too clean' hypothesis, and the second is that medical care has got better and so tendencies to have allergies can now be passed on down families in a way that simply wasn't possible before.

 

 

Which is also a possible cause for the increase in asthma.

 

---------- Post added 04-10-2018 at 17:00 ----------

 

You may be talking about medically verified allergies, but this is not how the thread started and it is the original post that I’m referring to.

 

regarding her son's 28 different allergies

 

I guess mum invented them, in her head?

[medusa]

Which is also a possible cause for the increase in asthma.

 

 

Biochemically asthma and allergies both effectively come down to autoimmune issues, so this also brings in everything from lupus (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis to Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

 

 

Incidentally, my dad does have concomitant autoimmune disorders, which he passed on to both of his children, and we've both got a whole selection of autoimmune disorders of our own. Another set of things that wouldn't have got passed on to babies in the pre-medicine world. Certainly I'd have either starved to death or been eaten by some predator or other with my joints falling to pieces and my thyroid problem making me slow.

[Ontarian1981]

Hay fever has been around forever as both my brother and I can testify. I developed a strange one about 15 years ago to Tetanus vaccine, I have to carry a card in my wallet. I have since had injuries that would normally require a shot, but I just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best. Lol