allergic to red wine?

The last two times i have had a glass of red wine i have woken in the night feeling very sick and a little strange and my heart beating faster than normal, is this a normal reaction to red wine?

[Bhupinder Kaur, MD]

Hello,

How are you?

It is usually not the alcohol that produces the allergic reaction to the wine or beer. The other ingredients in the alcohol, such as yeast, sulfur dioxide, and additives are often the culprits. All wines contain sulfites, because yeast naturally produces sulfite compounds during the fermentation process, and without sulfites, wine would spoil and oxidize.It may be that you are allergic to sulfites or any other additives in wine.They can cause nausea,cramps,hives ,palpitations,difficulty walking, blurred vision, slurred speech, slowed reaction time etc.

To find out whether the symptoms that you are having are due to allergy to red wine,you can go in for allergy testing from an allergy specialist.If it comes out to be positive,then avoidance of alcohol is the best treatment.

I hope it helps.Take care and pls do keep me posted on how you are doing and if you have any additional queries.Kind regards.