Eating Fruits Can Make You Sick
Do you experience itching in your mouth whenever you eat a banana? When you eat an apple, does your stomach fill with gas? Do raw peaches make your throat swell? And when you eat raw pineapple, even the canned version, do you find your throat burning or, even worse, do you break out in hives?
Experiencing any of these symptoms may indicate that you suffer from Oral Allergy Syndrome (OAS) or Pollen Food Syndrome.
In the majority of cases, Oral Allergy Syndrome is linked with allergies to pollens such as ragweed, birch, plantain, and other grasses. The immune system mistakes the food proteins for the pollen proteins and causes an allergic reaction.
The sufferer may experience additional allergy reactions such as itching in the eyes or nostrils that are stuffed up. Or the person may experience redness of the lips, tongue, gums, and palate. The most severe reactions can trigger asthma or anaphylaxis shock.
In the majority of cases, the primary culprits are fruits and nuts. But many additional foods can cause these symptoms also. This disease can be particularly discomforting for strict vegetarians who want to eat raw fruits and vegetables.
for the most part, OAS is connected with eating uncooked foods. This means that if you cook the foods, you will probably not have an OAS reaction. This is because the proteins in these foods are temperature sensitive. Heating them usually makes them far less allergenic because they change the basic nature of the protein to one that the immune system does not recognize.
In other cases, however, the symptoms will simply migrate to the intestinal area where you’ll experience gas, bloating, nausea, diarrhea, or other gastrointestinal distress.
Most of the time OAS is not a life-threatening condition. In addition, in most cases the discomfort will only last for a few minutes. For others, however, the reactions can be severe and even be life threatening.
Normally, Oral Allergy Syndrome is treated simply by giving the patient an allergy shot. These shots work by gradually building up a person’s resistance to allergens until he is no longer affected by them.
Those with asthma or hay fever allergies are the ones who are most at risk for OAS . And the signs will generally show up right away. If you start to go through some of the signs such as your throat passages narrowing or vomiting, you should contact your physician right away.
Al Jeffries is an author and researcher for a1-allergies.com . Please visit his website for more allergy related articles such as dog allergy, pollen allergy, and sulfa drug allergy relief.