Last week (or the week before), someone made a comment in a thread saying they'd never heard of an allergy to chicken. Somewhere in the thread, someone typed something that I (perhaps mis-)read as 'chicken allergies don't exist'.
I'm telling the below, probably-boring story to warn those of you in hospitality to please, PLEASE, never assume that an allergy doesn't exist.
I once did an allergy 'prick' test. Basically, a nurse with a series of numbered vials draw on my forearms, marking squares, and marking each square with a number. Then she pricked my skin and put a drop of each vial into the square with each corresponding number.
(Nurses, it was twenty years ago: I don't remember whether it was a drop first then the broken skin, or vice versa. And it might have been a smear, not a drop.)
Any square which produced a histamine reaction, I was deemed allergic to the corresponding substance. The severity of the reaction denoted how allergic I was (am) considered to be.
Sadly, by the time the reactions came up, my forearms looked like I'd been stung by a hive of bees. Some squares had absolutely nothing, though.
Among the things I am histamine-allergic to (ie, true allergy, ie, the OMZOG I CAN DIE) .... is chicken.
Also lettuce. Yes, plain old iceberg lettuce. The stuff that's almost nothing but chlorophyll and water and fibre.
Not only am I allergic to them, but they're sufficiently common allergies that the allergen test kit includes them!
I'm telling the below, probably-boring story to warn those of you in hospitality to please, PLEASE, never assume that an allergy doesn't exist.
I once did an allergy 'prick' test. Basically, a nurse with a series of numbered vials draw on my forearms, marking squares, and marking each square with a number. Then she pricked my skin and put a drop of each vial into the square with each corresponding number.
(Nurses, it was twenty years ago: I don't remember whether it was a drop first then the broken skin, or vice versa. And it might have been a smear, not a drop.)
Any square which produced a histamine reaction, I was deemed allergic to the corresponding substance. The severity of the reaction denoted how allergic I was (am) considered to be.
Sadly, by the time the reactions came up, my forearms looked like I'd been stung by a hive of bees. Some squares had absolutely nothing, though.
Among the things I am histamine-allergic to (ie, true allergy, ie, the OMZOG I CAN DIE) .... is chicken.
Also lettuce. Yes, plain old iceberg lettuce. The stuff that's almost nothing but chlorophyll and water and fibre.
Not only am I allergic to them, but they're sufficiently common allergies that the allergen test kit includes them!
Comment