Am I suddenly becoming allergic to multiple things?

I have been wondering the same thing! For me it is food, rather than skin, and airborne stuff. I have been putting off having an allergy test, mostly because I worry that if I am allergic suddenly to multiple things, the results would have to be unpleasant.
I guess I will help us both by issuing a challenge. I will if you will.
I will be watching to see what others have to say on the matter.

You can suddenly become allergic. It makes sense that it might even happen to multiple thing. Allergy is basically your body perceiving something as an invader and your body sends out immune response to fight it. Once your body decides something is an invader, often, the more you are exposed to it the worse the allergy gets if your exposure is far and few between. For instance a bee sting might cause a severly bad reaction at the bee sting sight. The next sting two years later might be a reaction on more of the body. The next sting the person might not be able to breath. Peanut allergies can be like that also.

Following that line of reasoning if the immune system is hyped up for some reason it might also show reactions to things more visibly now than before when the allergy might have gone fairly un-noticed.

Lastly, if you started using new products then you might always have been allergic to those things and you just never exposed yourself before. As far as cosmetics and lotions, it is actually statisticly more common for people to have a reaction to a natural ingredient than a chemical. Cosmetic companies often follow trends in natural ingredients. Some examples are Aloe, fruit extracts, in the past they used paba. Paba is one that so many people had reaction companies stopped using it. I had no trouble with paba, but I am allergic to several natural ingredients, and I have never narrowed down which ones. If the shampoo says natural or bio something, there is a 50/50 chance I am going to itch. Same with face lotions. Anyway, following this logic, you could without realizing it try a few new shampoos and lotions close together that all have the same ingredient, because that is what is trending now.

I had zero allergies. I even was tested for contact dermatitis (they put a bunch of chemicals on your for 2 days and see your reaction) and I was allergic to none of them, excpet the adhesive or latex that held the chemicals on. I was tested for allergies, food, plants, and no reaction to anything. The nurse could not believe it. Yet, I do have some allergies, and some very severe reactions to certain medicines.

Your hives reaction makes me wonder if you had taken a new medicine for a short time.

I wouldn’t necessarily believe the bumps in your eye have to be from allergies.

The allergy situation is beyond epidemic. And the truly startling truth is that multiple allergies are now so common that they are regarded as more or less routine! My own take is that we are ALL carrying a chemical load that no amount of “healthy living” has any chance of eliminating, and the rise of exotic ailments, particularly autoimmune disorders is all but unavoidable. We are all riding a big complex and indecipherable chemical roulette wheel and God only knows when your number is up.

@JLeslie The hives were a little baffling, and according to a few doctors who saw me that day, they said it’s a common occurrence to never figure out what causes them (especially since a lot of people only get them once, apparently). The food I ate was ruled out (I haven’t had any weird reactions since, when I ate more of the same stuff), I wasn’t on any new medications, hadn’t been using any new products. We went over everything and just couldn’t figure it out. My doctor did say that if I ever get them to that degree again she absolutely wants multiple allergy tests done, since they were on my throat and by my mouth, as well. That’s when hives get dangerous and not knowing what caused such a severe reaction is kind of scary, so now I have to carry Benadryl in my purse, just in case.

@Here2_4 I’m definitely willing, if only to ease my mind. I wouldn’t be as worried if it wasn’t for the fact that all of this is starting to happen out of nowhere for me.

@stanleybmanly I don’t disagree with everything you said. It’s a sad world we live in. ... People suck. I should sleep, I’m getting very pessimistic.

Take heart! A chemical remedy is probably in your future.

@stanleybmanly Blargh! Lol

Okay, I’m going to pass out for a few hours. I’ll get to any replies a little bit later, but thank you guys for taking the time to answer this. It was kind of a loaded, rambly question.

Doesn’t surprise me that sometimes it is just a weird mystery. Possibly just a body haywire thing. Although, I tend to think there usually is some cause we just couldn’t figure out. Scary. Only other cause I can think of is overheated or severe stress.

The trouble is that “weird mysteries” are ramping up at a rate which insures that within a generation or 2, EVERYONE will be walking around with some sort of allergic sensitivity.

@stanlybmanly I saw a show about this super nutritional food they give malnourished children in Africa. Severely malnourished, the kids are on the border if death. It’s a peanut butter base and the reporter asked a doctor what they do if the child is allergic to peanuts and the doctor said they never see it. She had never seen a peanut allergy in Africa or while working in South America. She theorized environment had something to do with it.

My husband is allergic to Biolage shampoo like me, which is kind of odd. I actually think environment and infection might be leaving our immune systems in a trigger happy mode.

@JLeslie It’s called Plumpy Nut. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut

@DrasticDreamer As you get older, you get exposed to things again and again, and the reactions increase each time. Wait till you have to carry the epipens. :)

I know from my wife that the more times she has a reaction to Poison Ivy, the worse it is. I have successfully, so far, managed to not have a reaction and do all in my power to keep it that way.

@Adirondackwannabe In my 40’s I would have incredible reactions to mosquito bites and fleas. Now (many years later) I rarely raise a welt when I get bit. I attribute this to the fact that I’ve been working hard on detoxing my body and improving my immune system.

My body is proof that allergic reactions don’t have to always get worse…

@snowberry What are some of the things you do to improve your immune system? If it seems to be working for you, even in small ways, I’d definitely be interested to hear anything you might want to share. :)

@DrasticDreamer I’ll PM you.

Allergies are still somewhat of a mystery but its fairly common to develop new ones as you get older. I’ve recently started having EXTREME reactions to insects and ive also apparently developed a food allergy for the first time in my life. I woke up in the middle of the night 2 days ago with insanely itchy palms (it’s not easy to scratch that part of your hands because it feels weird), the next morning the itch was gone but I had hives on my legs, I’m still trying to figure out what triggered it exactly.

Getting older really fucking sucks after you hit 21.

I had friends on the West Coast who would use modelling plaster on their faces and they would put some kind of cosmetic foundation on their faces first to avoid the caustic reaction of the plaster.

Some things I’ve read recently suggest a lot of allergies have to do with the health of digestive flora. Following courses of antibiotics a lot of good/necessary intestinal flora are harmed or killed off. This puts the gut into a more defensive mode that spills over into the rest of the body, The body then starts reacting to things it used to be able to handle.
Some people report getting relief from late-onset allergies when they used probiotics and/or ate more yogurt or acidophilus.

@dabbler Yes that can definitely make a difference.