Allergic reaction

Funny thing happened to me last week and again yesterday morning. Well, not funny but strange. While eating my usual lunch Kathleen asked me to try her spicy canned tuna. Since it was mixed with rice, which I am not eating on this carb-restricted diet, she pulled out a few shreds of tuna that I tasted. Within 10 minutes I began to feel a prickling sensation in my face and tightening in my throat. My face went very red, like bad sunburn. The spicy tuna seemed to have triggered Anaphylaxis and I didn’t ever know I had an allergy.

I was sent over to emergency at a nearby hospital where I stood in line for forty minutes and a triage nurse never even looked at the window. She was busy with paperwork. Anger burning here…I went and asked someone else who told me to stay in line and wait. The antihistamine I had taken back at the office began to work so I left.

Thinking it must have been cottonseed oil on the tuna that did it I teased Kathleen a little, saying she had tried to kill me. She quipped back that she had also saved my life by giving me the antihistamine.

The incident was dismissed until Sunday morning when we were checking out of a hotel (more about the weekend later). I went back to give a last check around the room and noticed the shrimp we had left in the fridge. Not wanting to waste them I tossed the last 4 shrimp into my mouth and went down to the car. 10 minutes later my face was tingling and burnt dark red, my throat tight. We went to a pharmacy for antihistamines, the pharmacist told me not to swallow but to chew them so they would act faster.

I had eaten shrimp the night before with no reaction. I have eaten tuna many times in sushi without a problem. How is it possible to have such a reaction to something I normally eat without a problem? How come ok one evening and the next morning a reaction? What is going on?

I suppose I should get an epi-pen just in case it gets worse. At the very least, the pharmacist recommended that I carry the pills with me always and chew two at the first appearance of a reaction.