Dangerous Allergies

[Sminty_Smeagol]

Hey. I couldn't find a thread on this and this has been on my mind lately because of an incident yesterday. I'm not really allergic to anything, but I know some people who are deadly allergic. Yesterday someone in my math class at my school sprayed 'Axe Deoderant' all on himself, and I was sitting on the other side of the room and I could smell it it's really strong. Anyways, this kid I know was apparently allergic to it and he had to leave the classroom and he couldn't breathe and he was all messed up so they had to call an ambulance. He's okay now but he wasn't at school the rest of the day (obviously) and they yelled at us all day and made us all throw out any fragrance or spray deoderant we had on us. We're not allowed to have the stuff at school but everyone uses it in the more obnoxious classes where behavior is still trying to be put under thumb... I mean we had all been warned about it and how it can kill some people and now we all know I guess...
point of post:
Are you or anybody you know really allergic to anything? Have you ever been around when someone has had serious allergies like that? What exactly is an allergy anyway

[Hemel]

Nasty! And very frightening. Yeah, I knew a girl in student accommodation - not where I was - and she was sharing a room. She had to ask for a single room because she was so allergic to the perfume her roommate was using.

And I've nearly been killed by a firework. Not at all in the way you'd think though ... what we were doing was night-time photography with one of the art students, and while she was taking the pictures I was waving the sparklers around. Sparklers are just tiny things, that you hold in your hand, and when they're lit they're a bit like fairy wands. Really nice. I loved them when I was little

Anyway, I'm an asthmatic, and I accidentally inhaled a tiny bit of the smoke from the sparkler. It was really pungent, and my lungs instantly went into a spasm. I dropped the sparkler and tried to get back to the student halls. The doorway was just ten paces from where we'd been standing. By the time I'd got to the doorway I couldn't breathe at all. Fortunately the warden was there. I just was able to gasp 'inhaler'. She ran up to my room, while someone else was rubbing my back. She came back with the inhaler, and I puffed and puffed at it, but it wasn't working. Someone else 'phoned for the ambulance. Someone else said about my nebuliser. They ran and got that, and shoved the mask over my face. Just after that the ambulance had arrived, and although the nebuliser had started helping they still insisted I go to hospital. I was kept in overnight.

I'm very careful about controlling my asthma, and normally don't have a problem. I couldn't believe how quickly that happened. It was very frightening, and I'm convinced that if the warden hadn't been there, or hadn't been so quick, I'd now have been dead. So yes, Sminty, personal experience of something similar.

As for what an allergy is, I suppose it's an abnormal reaction of the immune system, trying to fight off something that it thinks is invading the body. I react to other things too - newspaper print brings my hands and arms out in lumps, and I can't eat bananas, of all things ...

[Bombadillo]

Yeah, those kind of times suck. I found out a few years ago that I am allergic to artichokes. It was a catered party, and it's apparently very classy to put them in ziti, although they have no taste. So I ate 'em and my whole upper digestive tract swelled. (Anglorfin will laugh when he reads this because he saw my face when my lips when they began to split.) Luckily, and stangely, this was a party at a doctor's beach house, with all of everybody's doctor friends there, so I was fine although even though it ruined the party for me.

I also have a friend who is allergic to sweat. It's odd because his race just happens to sweat a lot, but if he does he'll brake out in itching hives. It even happens when he gets worked up over something, so during a heated argument he'll eventually start scratching all over himself. It's pretty funny to observe, but it's inevitably made him into a couch potato.

[johnnyrod]

Most people are sensitive to something, like I get hayfever and over-ripe bananas make my lips itch, or my mate who swells up and turns pink when he has cranberries (like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Dangerous allergies are more along the lines of anaphalaxis, where people really swell up and go red, the blood vessels in their skin dilate and they can't breathe, and can become dead quite quickly. The treatment is a pen-injector containing adrenalin which someone would have on them if they knew they had a problem (it can be tested for in a much less dangerous way).

Never seen it, don't have it. People seem to worry a lot about allergies these days, but then they seem to worry about heaps of things that will probably never occur either.