I have had various allergies all my life (none life-threatening), when I was a child I had a lot of food allergies that have since gone away, and I have always been allergic to cats, dust, mold, and pollen, most of which required very occasional antihistamines to manage symptoms. But just within the past two years or so I have started developing more serious food and inhalant allergies that continue to get worse.
It seemed to start with serious reactions to various types of beer and wine. Red or white, doesn't matter; it's just the brand that matters. Some wines and beers are fine, hard liquor is fine. My mouth and lips would swell, my nose would get congested and start running, and my stomach would feel uncomfortable; occasionally it would trigger what I've always thought was a hiatal hernia attack (intense pain in the middle of the chest that comes in waves, unable to swallow anything, belching). I have had these attacks all my life and I've realized now that these attacks always correspond to my eating a food that I am having a reaction to, leading me to believe that they are precipitated by swelling from the allergy.
About a year ago I started having such constant inhalant allergies that I had to start taking Claritin on a daily basis to deal with it. A couple of months ago the Claritin seemed to completely stop working so I changed to chlorpheneramine maleate, but I was so tired for the several days I was on it that I had to quit using it. Now I'm back to 2 Claritin/day to manage the symptoms, and it doesn't seem to affect the food allergies at all, just inhalant. I asked for a referral for allergy testing last November, and I am going to have to wait until June of 2011 to get in for an appointment because the Canadian health system is terrible.
I ate some raw egg today (meringue) forgetting myself.... my allergy to raw eggs was not really all that bad before, but now it's been over an hour and I'm still having symptoms, I even considered going up to the hospital if the swelling didn't stop (which it has started to get better). I don't know what to do or why I am getting so many allergies!