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I am allergic to raw mushrooms, can't eat anything that has been cross contaminated with it. I ate some fresh veggies that had a few flecks of mushroom in it that I didn’t see and within 5 minutes it had triggered my asthma, my mouth swelled up and the lips, tongue and all the rest of the symptoms that go with it. I can eat them when they are cooked though and I now love canned mushroom, since I can’t eat the raw thing anymore. I can’t even handle raw ones (my husband hates mushrooms) so I can’t eat them freshly cooked unless I go out.

I have found that since I have given birth to my twins 3 years ago that my allergies and asthma have gotten exponentially worse. I can’t even be in the same room with cats, dogs, any animal with hair. My allergies to the great outdoors have had the same consequence. I also have developed an allergy to Celery, I have the same reactions as I have to mushrooms but I stopped eating it, so I haven’t found out if it gets worse with every exposure.

My main concern right now is that I have a reaction when I eat in combination tomatoes and bread. I can eat bread alone and tomatoes but when they are eaten in the same meal I get an overwhelming reaction to throw up. It can be as mild as a slight queasiness or I can start to throw up. I have looked and looked but I can’t find anything anywhere that mentions allergies when foods are combined. Since the birth of my twins the tomato and bread reaction has gotten worse as well. I have never cared for pizza because it always left me feeling sick afterwards which I just thought that it was the grease in it.

I feel like an idiot when I say anything about the t&b thing....I know it is not in my head but nobody has heard of it and people just think I am being picky. Since I was about 13 apples have made me feel the same way. Sometimes the reaction is worse than other so I will every once and a while eat a bit of an apple but never a whole one. The T&B reaction is worse than the apple one though because my mildest reaction to T&B is the worst I have had to apples.

For me it's Red Wine. As soon as it touches my lips I start to turn green, start sweating, and get nauseous. This was something that just sort of happened. I used to drink red wine all the time, and during my university years I even made it several times, with never a problem. After school, I spent a year traveling, and basically lived on in while I was in France. But as soon as I came home, the slightest drop makes me ill. I can use it in cooking no problem, I just can't drink it. Very odd.

PINEAPPLE - i get the itchy mouth/lips thing from fresh pineapple. I can eat 3-4 chunks, but more than that and I'm itchy.

@db - where do you get the rash? I get one on my hands, was told by a dermatologist that it is eczema, but they don't know what causes it. However it seems to go along with another "cycle" so I think it's either hormonal, or I'm sensitive to something in the feminine products I use.

My husband gets the itchy mouth thing when eating cantaloupe and most other orange fruits and vegetables, but only raw. Cooked carrots are fine. We think it's probably the carotene. He's also severely allergic to bee stings, so we don't mess around with the orange food allergy. He can eat about 4 chunks of cantaloupe, and then he's done.

All I can say is, I feel very fortunate that I'm only allergic to penicillin! (and as of last year, apparently to pollen as well, even though I keep saying I am not)

This is all very interesting because I'm allergic to something, but no clue what it is. It manifests as a rash. One doctor was fairly certain it was food induced. Next doctor is almost certain it's not food, but is something I'm coming in contact with. Which could still be a food product, if it's something I'm touching while I'm prepping. Tests (so far) show that I'm not allergic to anything, including things that many people are allergic to.

So, I've been on a mission to pare everything down to single-ingredient items when it comes to food, so it makes it easier to track what I've eaten and/or touched. No need to track mysterious additives and preservatives if I'm not buying them in the first place. This has the added benefit of eliminating things like HFCS from my diet, along with all the other oddities that come in packaged products.

I've also changed every cleaning product in the house several times, and now it's pretty much all scent and dye-free.

So far, no luck. The rash comes, stays and goes on its own schedule. I'm just hoping that when I find out what the problem is, it ends up being something I don't care so much about, rather than a food I wouldn't want to give up, like tomatoes.

@Robbo--a student I worked with was violently allergic to red and blue dyes. Some of them are used in marshmallows, so they aren't obviously red and blue when they are through the manufacturing process. So it is possible to be allergic to certain chemical compounds.

Food-wise, I once developed an allergy to dairy, about 2.5 yrs ago. Within about 20 minutes I would develop cat-o-nine tails all over my body whenever I ate some. I went dairy free for a few months and now I can eat it without any problem, after slowly reintroducing myself to it-- It happened when I was relying on dairy way too much as a protein source. I have allergies to pollen, so I think sometimes when you have a tendency to develop allergies and you are stressed, your body can react badly to harmless substances. I also had the oral allergy thing with apples for a few months. Both really sucked and they certainly weren't because I wanted the 'attention' for having a special diet, and since they came and went, it just felt weird.

Allergies do come and go--when I was a kid I was violently allergic to pollen and now although I have reactions in the spring and fall (runny nose in spring, swollen eyes in fall) I'm not camped out with an inhaler and six boxes of OTC antihistamines like I was as a child.

When I went to get tested because I have a number of non food related allergies they found that I have a mild allergy to seafoods. I hate seafoods anyways except for scallops, shrimp/prawns, lobster and crab. I do eat those and so far never got a reaction.

I too am allergic to stone fruits - I used to have a reaction to some apples as well but that's gone away as I've gotten older. This hasn't stopped me from eating peaches or plums, as the itching usually isn't that bad, but I was seriously sad when I found out Rainier Cherries made my throat close up as they are sooo delicious...

@Robbo - yes. When I was 10, I was hospitalized for appendicitis. After my surgery, I was given a liquid tylenol/codeine medication for pain. I broke out in the same rash you described. After that, they just gave me shots if I needed them for pain. Don't know if I still have the allergy though because I've not taken anything but OTC meds since then.

I THINK YOU'RE ALL LYING! ;- P

It's interesting to read other people are sensitive to avocado. I love them, and credit them pretty much entirely for my making it through college without malnourishment, but I have a history of stomach issues and nowadays when I am having trouble, nothing causes more pain than avocado, though they were never a problem in the past. I also adore tomatoes but they give me canker sores and acid reflux in any sort of quantity (2 pieces of pizza worth of sauce = enough to do it).

Also, my boyfriend can't eat citrus in more than miniscule quantities (I can splash lemon into a dish but that's it) or he gets a rash-like reaction in his mouth.

I used to have a deep psychological aversion to mushrooms (they gave me nightmares!), but I eventually got over it by forcing myself to eat them repeatedly until it stopped.

My best friend is allergic to blueberries.