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Allergy Community
This patient support community is for discussions relating to airbourne allergies, eye allergies, shots, anaphylaxis, asthma, children's allergies, hives, insect stings, rhinitis, sinuses, and allergies to drugs, foods, and pets.
I am a PATM sufferer who is new to this forum. I've been reading all the posts of this forum as well as the older forum and like many of you when you first discovered this forum, I feel a sense that I am no longer alone with this condition.
I'm a 26 year old male (of Korean descent) and I've noticed this condition since my junior year of college although I could have had it earlier and just not noticed it. So it's been about 6 years or so.
I'm a software development engineer so like some of you I work in an office environment. The people in all of the cubicles next to mine have allergic reactions sniffles, coughing, throat clearing. When I talk to people, I can see them rubbing their eyes, nose, and in meetings the people who sit next to me often hold a finger under their nose so I may have some odor issue in addition to the allergic reactions. The reactions seem to be worse in smokers and people who have some kind of pre-existing allergy such as an allergy to pollen or cats.
Some things I've noticed:
1) My face and scalp get very oily. I'd say a lot more than your average person.
2) I have acne problems which are probably related to my oil issues.
3) I have dry skin issues in the winter time but I think this is just caused by excess showering and use of soaps which can dry out my skin.
4) Like someone else mentioned before, when I wear new cloths as opposed to older cloths the allergic reactions are a little less but they are still there.
5) When I eat certain foods I seem to get more reactions than when I restrict my diet more. I haven't quite pinpointed which foods worsen my condition but I think it is meats and dairy.
6) When I'm nervous and sweat as a result, people's allergic reactions become more severe.
7) When I'm in an area for a while, people sometimes complain about the air being "musty", "stale", and "stuffy". Rarely they complain about other smells such as fishy smell, burnt plastic, and once someone said "what died" which made me think I may have TMAU or leaky gut syndrome. No one has ever told me to my face that I smelled.
8) When I'm talking to someone and they constantly are clearing their throats, they often comment saying "I feel like I have something stuck in my throat" or "The air is really dry".
9) My general body odor tends to come from places where there is hair such as my head and my forearms which have hair as well as my armpits. I don't know if this is also where my allergen is coming from.
10) I have coughed up a white solid chunk once and it had a very foul smelling odor so maybe there is some odor or allergen coming form my lungs.
11) I have a stuffy nose almost always. I'm not sure what is causing this.
12) I don't have a white coating on my tongue but I brush my tongue twice a day.
Like almost all of you I am oversensitive to coughs, sniffles, etc. I definately think people having reactions in nearby cars is a possibility as long as both your car and their car have the windows open because I've noticed the same thing but causing reactions over the phone is probably just our oversensitivity to the coughs and sniffles that make us think it is caused by us. I know not all allergic reactions are caused by me but I know I definately have PATM.
I originally thought my condition might have been caused by TMAU but even the expert of TMAU Dr. Preti says TMAU doesn't cause allergic reactions so I ruled that out.
I currently believe I have some kind of digestive disorder where I'm either producing too much stomach acid and that acid is somehow being absorbed into my blood and out through my sweat or I'm producing too little stomach acid and I'm not properly digesting the food I eat.
The case where I produce too little stomach acid is called Hypochlorhydria. Here is a link http://www.leakygut.co.uk/Hypochlorhydria.htm
Hypochlorhydria is basically where you don't produce enough hydrochloric acid in your stomach so you don't digest your food properly. This undigested protein can be decomposed in the intestines by pathogenic bacteria resulting in the release of toxic substances such as cadaverine and hydrogen sulfide gas. This hydrogen sulfide gas may be released by our bodies and causing people to react to it.
Hydrogen sulfide gas causes allergic reactions such as coughing, sniffling, rubbing of eyes, even tiredness which some people have reported.
By the way, I don't think there is one treatment or cure that can cure all of us but hopefully each treatment that someone finds for themself will shed some light on a treatment for somene else and so on.
Anyways, I'm glad to be part of this community.
I found some more information about Hypochlorhydria at:
http://www.immunesupport.com/library/showarticle.cfm/ID/8571
Some interesting stuff I found from the website about Hypochlorhydria:
1) Acid is required for the stomach to empty correctly, and failure to do so results in gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD).
2) Acid is required to sterilize the stomach and kill bacteria and yeast that may be ingested.
3) And an acid environment is required for the absorption of certain micronutrients, in particular divalent and trivalent cat-ions such as calcium, magnesium, zinc, copper, iron, selenium, boron and so on.
4) The treatment in the short term is to take acid supplements. Indeed, this may explain why cider vinegar is such a popular treatment for many problems - the vinegar acidifies the stomach and improves the digestion of food. Clearly, this has the potential to affect a wide range of conditions. The problem with cider vinegar is that it contains yeast and would therefore not be tolerated by many people.
I found these four things interesting because not only does Hypochlorhydria lead to the generation of Hydrogen sulfide gas which is an allergen but many of us have said that we have GERD, zinc deficiency, yeast problems, and some of us have said vinegar helps to alleviate our problems. Also Hypochlorhydria can lead to FBO and Candida so that might be an explaination of why some of us also have these conditions too.
I'm going to buy some Betaine Hydrochloride capsules and see if it helps my digestion of food.
Talk to you guys later.
1) Have you ever considered we may have a psychological issue? Hypothetically, how would that work? I am just wondering because if this were to be psychological, which I don't think it is, we'd be the last ones to know ourselves.
2) Have you shared PATM with people close to you? Family? Friends? What is their reaction? What do they think?
3) Doesn't Hydrogen sulfide just cause bad breath? where does it say it causes allergies in others? Don't get me wrong, I also something in our breath is a factor.
4) These are the conditions related to Hypochloridya- but nowhere does it say it makes you cause allergies:
Acne
Anemia
Autoimmune disease
Eczema
Food allergy and sensitivity
Hashimoto's thyroiditis
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
Osteoporosis
Rosacea
Psoriasis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Small intestine bacterial overgrowth
Candida yeast infection
Vitiligo
Adrenal fatigue
5) What's the relation between leaky gut and GERD with causing PATM???
It seems to me that leaky gut and GERD is a red herring. wouldn't there be millions with PATM?
1) Yea I definately think there is a psychological component. I don't think we can separate our condition into 100% physical and 100% psychological but rather a mixture of both. I'm a beleiver in the phrase "mind over matter" because my anxiety definately enhances my PATM. When I'm calm I don't have that fight or flight response which causes me to sweat.
2) I've only ever told my parents about my PATM issue about two years ago but when I told them I suspected that it was caused by body odor so when they heard they thought I was a little crazy because they don't think I have an unusual body odor problem. They actually recommended that I see a therapist because I was very depressed at the time. I do understand my parent's point of view because putting myself in their shoes I would think that I am overexaggerating my issue and making a big deal of nothing. But as we all know this condition isn't just something we can ignore. A few coughs is tollerable but constant coughing would get on anyone's nerves.
3) Here is the Toxicollogy Report for Hydrogen Sulfide:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp114.html
It's a long document but you can skim through it and it says that exposure to it causes many of the symptoms that a lot of us mention (coughing, nasal issues, irritation, etc).
If Hydrogen Sulfide or some similar toxin is in fact being produced in our gut due to Hypochlorhydria or some similar gut related issue then the toxin might be absorbed into our blood. Since it is a toxic substance, our body will try to get rid of it through some mechanism such as sweating.
4) It doesn't say it causes allergies