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Food allergies and anxiety
My 32 year old boyfriend has recently become allergic to pork and pork products and about the same time he started suffering from anxiety attacks. Could the two be linked?
That could very well be. Has he ever been tested for allergies? You might want to consider seeing a nutritionist or naturapathic doctor. They can run all the tests needed to see if he's lacking any nutrient or is allergic or sensitive to certain foods, etc. It can get pricy to do all that though.
Btw, I was saying I didn't get what JSGeare had last said. :)
Btw, I was saying I didn't get what JSGeare had last said. :)
Sorry, left out the question. Could his anxiety be the result of some deficiency.
Let me rephrase my question. He doesn't panic over his allergies and he doesn't eat any kind of pork product. He suffers from anxiety attacks which can strike at any time. His anxiety attacks started a little after he cut pork completely out of his diet. I'm thinking maybe he is lacking some kind of protein or enzyme that pork had that may be the reason he started having panic attacks.
I'm goin to really, really make something up here and ask you to run it by your experts. Higher altitude means less oxygen, so right away the body is working to replace the loss. Possibly (this is the made up part) allergens in the air are a bit more potent when there is less oxygen. So the CAT gets wacky -and so does your mom. After awhile, the body adjusts, all the toys go back in their boxes and everything is fine.
Or how about this: your mother is allergic to the cat -specifically, to what's in the cat's saliva. She doesn't normally react to it, because she's accomodated it. But, in the rarefied atmosphere, the cat hyperventilates for whatever reason, spewing more stuff in the enclosed car and your mom reacts accordingly.
OK, I made it all up -but you gotta wonder. I'm just gla deveryone is OK now. Thanks for your 2 cents. Where do I send the check?
Or how about this: your mother is allergic to the cat -specifically, to what's in the cat's saliva. She doesn't normally react to it, because she's accomodated it. But, in the rarefied atmosphere, the cat hyperventilates for whatever reason, spewing more stuff in the enclosed car and your mom reacts accordingly.
OK, I made it all up -but you gotta wonder. I'm just gla deveryone is OK now. Thanks for your 2 cents. Where do I send the check?
It's interesting you said that, JSGeare. Although this isn't allergy related, I observed something simular that happened with my mother. They came to visit us a few years ago from another state. Our state is a higher altitude. They usually visit us once a year or so. While going over a mountain pass (they were driving), my mom's cat started experiencing shortness of breath, etc and was having difficulties. My mom started to panic thinking she was going to lose the cat. It was an older cat. Shortly after that, my mom began experiencing shortness of breath. Now, we did wonder because she had a precedure done several months earlier, had stints put in her heart but had seemed find and the doctor had said she was fine to travel. So we all felt like it was because of that. They stayed about a week and she kept having problems so they decided to go back home. The next year they came out and she was fine. She came out this year too and she was fine. It very well could have been her heart but my dad and I wondered if some of it was psychosymatic (sp?), that she hit a panic because her cat was having trouble breathing. I'm not saying that to be mean and we never suggested that to my mom. We just don't know. I just found it interesting that she started having the same thing as the cat right after the cat had trouble! It's interesting how our minds work, I guess. I'm just glad she's been able to visit here again. It was really just that one Summer. So yeah, I thought I'd throw my two cents in here for whatever that's worth, lol.
Thansk for your interesting question, and it is one that I can answer directly.
YEP.
My father was allergic to many thinsg, but among them was cotton seed oil. This oil was once the most common one used in virtually every prepared food stuff, from canned gravy to mayonnaise to bread. It was in EVERYTHING. Worse, this was during the days that food labeing requirements were very relaxed -the requirement was to report vegetable oil -but not WHICH one. That's all changed, and most everything now uses soy, safflower or peanut oil. Got all that?
Now, my Dad's allergy was dicovered by a New York allergist after extensive testing. His allergy was life-threatening; when exposed, he could not breath, went into shock, had an asthma attack. He had to carry a syringe filled with adrenalin to get a kick start if some emergeny came up. He also learned to order a meal with NO gravy, sandwhiches with no mayonnaise, salad with oil and vingar brought to the table.
And one day, he ate something at my house that had the cotton seed oil. Because we knew not to use foods that had it, he usually never worried when under my roof. But my wife had served those rolls that pop out of a can -and THOSE were the culprit! They had added cottonseed oil!
And what did Dad do? He went into a panic attack. Of COURSE he did -he could not breath, he went pale -it was scary for everyone. He lived through it. Benedryl.
Years later, when he was consulting a new allergist, he reported the cottonseed oil problem. And, do you know what the allergist said? He said, "Mr. G, that's all in your head. What you have is just anxiety. I've never heard of an allergy to cottonseed. No one has ever heard of that. Its just in your head." A great controversy emerged from this denial, and finally, the doctor agreed to special tests to see if it were true. Mind you now, I'm talking a top Baltimore allergist! Of course the tests came back positive -and the doctir had some serious back-pedaling to do.
I tell this story, because there was a doctor who reached for the panic/anxiety problem when it WAS an allergy!
If you b/f does have an allergy to pork, then the allergic reaction, if severe enough, can certainly result in anxiety/panic. So, yes, you would panic if you can't get your breath, your heart rate soars (or drops) etc. Makes sense. But what you need to do here is spend some time with the allergist, if you haven't already, to deinitely pin down pork -and anything else- that could be the issue. For example, because nitrates are often used to process pork, THEY may be the culprit. Point is, pin it down.
All that said, if the b/f also has factors which would make himn susceptible to panic and anxiety even without the allergy, they should be addressed accordingly.
First mission -get the data, get a baseline. And work with a doctor who "gets it" about possible interactions, and is not going to write anything off, out of hand.
Thanks for contributing and please consider becoming a member.
YEP.
My father was allergic to many thinsg, but among them was cotton seed oil. This oil was once the most common one used in virtually every prepared food stuff, from canned gravy to mayonnaise to bread. It was in EVERYTHING. Worse, this was during the days that food labeing requirements were very relaxed -the requirement was to report vegetable oil -but not WHICH one. That's all changed, and most everything now uses soy, safflower or peanut oil. Got all that?
Now, my Dad's allergy was dicovered by a New York allergist after extensive testing. His allergy was life-threatening; when exposed, he could not breath, went into shock, had an asthma attack. He had to carry a syringe filled with adrenalin to get a kick start if some emergeny came up. He also learned to order a meal with NO gravy, sandwhiches with no mayonnaise, salad with oil and vingar brought to the table.
And one day, he ate something at my house that had the cotton seed oil. Because we knew not to use foods that had it, he usually never worried when under my roof. But my wife had served those rolls that pop out of a can -and THOSE were the culprit! They had added cottonseed oil!
And what did Dad do? He went into a panic attack. Of COURSE he did -he could not breath, he went pale -it was scary for everyone. He lived through it. Benedryl.
Years later, when he was consulting a new allergist, he reported the cottonseed oil problem. And, do you know what the allergist said? He said, "Mr. G, that's all in your head. What you have is just anxiety. I've never heard of an allergy to cottonseed. No one has ever heard of that. Its just in your head." A great controversy emerged from this denial, and finally, the doctor agreed to special tests to see if it were true. Mind you now, I'm talking a top Baltimore allergist! Of course the tests came back positive -and the doctir had some serious back-pedaling to do.
I tell this story, because there was a doctor who reached for the panic/anxiety problem when it WAS an allergy!
If you b/f does have an allergy to pork, then the allergic reaction, if severe enough, can certainly result in anxiety/panic. So, yes, you would panic if you can't get your breath, your heart rate soars (or drops) etc. Makes sense. But what you need to do here is spend some time with the allergist, if you haven't already, to deinitely pin down pork -and anything else- that could be the issue. For example, because nitrates are often used to process pork, THEY may be the culprit. Point is, pin it down.
All that said, if the b/f also has factors which would make himn susceptible to panic and anxiety even without the allergy, they should be addressed accordingly.
First mission -get the data, get a baseline. And work with a doctor who "gets it" about possible interactions, and is not going to write anything off, out of hand.
Thanks for contributing and please consider becoming a member.
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