BS: Kiss of Death

Subject: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Cluin
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 08:22 PM

I knew nut allergies could be severe, but I didn't know they could be this bad:

"Kiss May Have Been Fatal" story here

A teenaged girl in Quebec dies after her boyfriend kisses her with peanut butter breath.

Imagine how he feels.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Metchosin
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 08:54 PM

jeez Cluin, that's one of the saddest things I've read. Can't you find something cheery to offset it?

Doesn't help that I also have a daughter who also has a severe allergic reaction to brazil nuts. We discovered this one Christmas when she was small and fortunately, managed to get the damned thing out of her mouth before she chewed and swallowed it . Only her lips started to swell up.

Poor kids.........

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 10:46 PM

And here I thought that I was the only person with a severe allergy to Brazil nuts. Reguardless - I'm guessing it's a very small club.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 10:57 PM

We found out the hard way that my 2 yr. old grandson has a severe allergy to eggs; can't even touch anything which has come into contact with an egg, not even a fork off my breakfast plate! We have "Epi-pens" in the car, his diaper bag, and at home just in case, plus he wears a child's medic alert tag. We've learned to do a lot of cooking and baking without eggs; just had delicious pumpkin pie sans eggs! Thank goodness he IS able to eat nuts and loves them.

My son had a peanut allergy, but not as severe as the poor girl in the article and he seems to have outgrown it, as long as he is careful not to overdo the PB sandwiches.:-)

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: frogprince
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 11:10 PM

Somewhat seriously: Many of us never heard of severe allergies to nuts until the last few years; now I know of at least a couple of cases within a few blocks. Has the rate of incidence gone up a lot, did kids die unnoticed and undiagnosed until a few years ago, or what?

A friend's little boy was so allergic to cow's milk that a drop would immediately raise a blister anywhere on his skin.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 07:12 AM

One medical view is that we have become so obsessed with 'hygiene & cleanliness' and needing a total absence of any 'germs' when children are small that their immune systems do not develop 'normally', they way they have evolved over many generations (oops - that's a bit of a bummer for the ID believers, folks!), that when the child then comes into contact with something never met before, the now hypersensitive immune system reacts obsessively and catastrophically.

When I was a kid, you were expected to eat a certain amount of good old fashioned dirt while growing up...

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Metchosin
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 12:49 PM

That medical view regarding allergies never worked for this household Foolestroupe. When your child grows up in an unfinished house full of dogs, pony paraphernalia, hamsters, gerbils, rats, mice and frogs, there's bound to be more than a peck of dirt in there somewhere.

Sadly, I have never been noted for any great domestic abilities either and it also doesn't account for her sibling's lack of problems in that regard.

Oddly the one that has the severe allergies put everything in her mouth when small and the one that didn't have allergies was not so inclined.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 01:10 PM

I tend to suspect that there is an increase in food allergies, and that it is because of overuse of antibiotics in animals from which we get foods such as milk and eggs, and also from overuse of antibiotics ourselves when we get sick.

Antibiotics kill the intestinal bacteria that help to keep intestinal yeast from over-proliferation in the gut. When yeast over-proliferate, the yeast produces toxins that cause the pores in the gut to become larger. These pores are normally just big enough to allow molecules of nutrients into the bloodstream that the body uses as fuel. When the pores become too big, larger food particles enter the bloodstream that the body identifies as germs, which it then mobilizes to fight off by producing antibodies and histamine. This is an allergic reaction, since an allergic reaction is when the body responds to something that is supposed to be benign as though it were a threat (a germ or pathogen).

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Metchosin
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 01:37 PM

That may be a possibility CarolC, but although both had the usual round of antibiotics as children for ear infections and other childhood stuff, their consumption of antibiotics in their food was lower than most. We also had our own chickens amongst other stuff. I do believe there has to be a gentetic predisposition in the mix somewhere for them not to be affected equally.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Charmion
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 01:40 PM

Until very recently, and I mean within living memory, small children often just died with little or no explanation. Victorian letters and diaries are full of references to little ones who "didn't thrive"and died to no one's surprise before they were old enough to talk. Mothers crossed their fingers with each baby, hoping this one would live to grow up but not really fully expecting it until the child made it to five or six.

In highly developed countries like Canada and the United States, the unexplained death of a baby or toddler is now so uncommon that we are now able to convince ourselves that it should not happen at all, it's "unnatural". I believe that many of those mysterious deaths that parents a century ago had to accept as "God's will" were the result of allergies and other immune system intolerances that we now live with into adulthood.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 01:52 PM

Just out of curiosity, Metchosin, did either of your children like to drink milk more than the other?

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Metchosin
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 02:19 PM

Not that I noticed Carol. Both had a lot of goats milk as children, because I worried a lot about Dev's allergies and because their Dad had a history of allergy problems. I also breast fed them way beyond what was considered "normal" then. Didn't help Dev one bit. God knows what I passed to both of them in my milk....Or perhaps it did help, maybe 100 years ago Dev wouldn't have made it past 5.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: open mike
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 03:02 PM

i had a friend once who had the same sensitivity to hazel nut (filbert)
some laws have been enacted for specific labels on foods for the sake
of peopole who are alergic. some labels say simply "nuts"

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Gurney
Date: 28 Nov 05 - 02:33 AM

We just had an English TV programme here about allergies. A young woman nearly died because of the small amout of sweetcorn in the batter on her prawns. It didn't especially offer any explanation for the seeming rise in the incidence of allergies, but one possible cause that happened to catch my ear was vaccination!
I used to get hayfever myself, but I seem to have mostly grown out of it in the last 50 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: GUEST,DianeD
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 09:28 AM

I have a 12 year old who is allergic to shellfish, and a 10 year old allergic to peanuts. They definitely ate their share of dirt, had animals in the house, etc. I had pollen and animal allergies growing up, but mine are much milder now. My husband doesn't seem to suffer from allergies, but there are severe food allergies on his side of the family; shellfish, something in tylenol and Motrin, eggs. I only know of these allergies in the current generation of children, my children and the children and grandchildren of my husbands siblings. None were known in past generations. Something seems to be genetic, but more prevalent today. Both children were breastfed until a year or so, but did eat typical grocery store food and milk.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 10:23 AM

Could be we just know more, these days, about what might be causing an allergic reaction. I do think there could also be something in what CarolC says and in genetics.

Like Mets' kids, our were raised in an unfinished house in the middle of the WY prairie dirt, wind, and critters, lots of critters. I think our food was purer then and I know we've been careful with my grandson's food, organic a lot of the time. The allergist did say he could outgrow the egg allergy as my son seems to've the peanut thing.

I feel badly for the poor kid who kissed his girlfriend. What a burden to carry through life.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: GUEST,DianeD
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 01:06 PM

My husband's great-niece was highly allergic to eggs, and has outgrown it by 4 years old. She was tested last year at Children's Hospital and can now eat anything!

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 02:26 PM

Prayers to the fam

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 04:22 PM

Posslbly genetics along with the other stuff. Neither of my parents had any food allergies that they were aware of, but I suspect my mother was allergic to dairy products. Among my siblings, there are three of us who currently have food allergies, and one who had them as an infant.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Juan P-B
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 04:48 PM

When she was younger & smaller he elder 'Rock Chick' had an allergy to egg-white and unknown to us had a 'munchmallow' biscuit - Within ten minutes she looked like a tiny, fat chinese person and had developed the personality that would have awarded her an ASBO on her first offence

She grew out of it by her teens and eats anything she wants but doesn't like egg whites anyway

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 10:42 PM

If she would have given him a good old fashioned blow job instead of a kiss she would still be alive.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 07:17 AM

Another tasteless, insensitive comment from one of our anonymous trolls.

DT

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Cluin
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 05:48 PM

My fiddle-playing cousin, in his early thrities developed an worsening allergy to seafood and after a few incidents with it, was hospitalized by the last one. He now carries an epi-pen with him everywhere and was told the next bout could kill him. It's not always something you grow out of, but just the opposite.

Subject: RE: BS: Kiss of Death
From: Grab
Date: 01 Dec 05 - 09:02 AM

The latest I heard on the whole allergy thing is that there's a *very* strong link between living on a cattle farm and lack of allergies. Even if the kid stays inside and never gets dirty. But apparently it only works for the first 12 months or so - after that, you're pretty much stuck with it. Possibly it's related to something mothers produce during breastfeeding, or maybe it's just something in the air.

Also on the subject of allergies, allergy specialists say it *is* possible to desensitise by building up the body's reaction, starting with vanishing small quantities of whatever it is and working up. But it's a slow (and necessarily careful!) process.

Graham.