Shellfish/Fish alliergies..anyone have one?

[remphish1]

So for the 3rd time in my life I went to visit an allergist. My whole life I have been "allergic" to all seafood/shellfish in addition to coconut, seasame seeds and penacilin. I was told when I was very young it could be potentially life threatening if I ever ate fish especially shellfish. With that dire warning I avoided it my whole life (now age 30). Aproximatley 5 years ago I went to an allergist and he confirmed I was allergic to all fish. We are switching insurance plans at the end of the year to a less diserable one so my wife insisted maybe I should visit the allergist once again.

 

Last night I went to the allergist where he told me life altering words (I am a huge food fanatic). He told me I was not allergic to SHELLFISH, coconut and although allergic to sesame seeds I could have sesame oil.

 

I was flooded with emotion on what this can possibly mean! Will I be able to have my first ever lobster, shrimp or clam? Would I have the guts to try it after avoiding it my whole life! What if the doctor is wrong? Needless to say I am getting a blood test done today to confirm said results but want to hear everyone elses expierence.

 

After the blood work is done and if it confirms the results I can do one more test. Have a piece of shellfish and wait at the doctors office for something to happen or hopefully not happen!

 

Wish me luck!

[PopTodd]

My son is allergic to a lot of things:

Peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, and wheat. (Those last 2 are really hard ones.)

 

He just outgrew a soy allergy, so we have hope for some of the others to go away. But, yeah it is really hard.

 

I can absolutely empathize with you; food allergies are hard. But, please look on the bright side, as those things are relatively easy to avoid (unlike wheat or eggs).

 

Get used to reading lots of labels and asking lots of questions.

 

That said, I do wish you best of luck. And, i want you to know, that, even if you are allergic, you can still find a lot of GOOD things to eat. You can still enjoy your food. You will get used to it.

It sucks. But there are worse things.

 

Good luck.

[remphish1]

Yeah I am already used to reading labels for most of my life. The thing that always upset me is I love asian food but they use alot of fish oil, sesame oil and other mysterous fish. I have to be so careful when I eat asian foods. Also every time I buy products at the asian grocery stories I have to read the long laundry list of ingrediants because there usually would be the warning made in a plant that processes fish or sesame was used. Hopefully it will make my life easier in this aspect as I can now disregard some of the ingrediant checking...

 

The biggest challenge with the fish allergy (and many others nuts, etc) though is restauraunt cross contamination. I can order something non fish and if it is cooked on a grill where fish is I can have a reaction so I still have reason to be leary.

[PopTodd]

The biggest challenge with the fish allergy (and many others nuts, etc) though is restauraunt cross contamination. I can order something non fish and if it is cooked on a grill where fish is I can have a reaction so I still have reason to be leary.

There are lots of places that we won't take our son, because with a hamburger you really need fries. He can get his hamburger with no bun, but when they have only one fryer. And they use it for both fries, and breaded items (onion rings, chicken fingers, etc.), he just can't do it. So, I hear you on that one.

It's a pain in the ass, but it's getting more common, so folks are starting to pay more attention to that kind of thing.