June 19, 2025 • 46 mins
Kalie shares her experiences with (or without?) allergies and busts some common myths people believe about allergies.
Our Episode 6 celebrity segment featured Lee Ji-eun AKA IU!
Getting Started: (1:08)
Irritants vs Allergens: (5:21)
Causes & Precautions: (13:18)
Myths: (14:42)
Possible treatments: (25:05) Respect Your (and others') Allergies/Storytime: (33.48)
Couple More Questions/More Storytime: (38:15)
Celebrity Segment & Wrap Up: (44:21)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Painfully
Podcast. This is episode 7, and today
we're talking about allergies. One quick note, we recorded this
over a year ago, so I'm going tobe referencing things like an
allergy test that I took a year prior.
We're talking like 2023 at this point.
(00:21):
OK, it's been a minute. So there's that, but we're
talking about allergies and we're talking about me having
them, me growing out of them, methinking I had them, not having
them, and what that experience has been like and how I've
navigated that. We're gonna talk about some
myths related to allergies that we hopefully can bust for you.
(00:44):
And Danny's got some great stories to share.
Overall, I think this is this isa good one.
So I'm glad you all are tuning in.
And with that, let's get into it.
(01:08):
Welcome back everybody to Painfully podcast.
This is episode 7. We are really powering through
these. I'm so excited.
I feel like I say this every single time I got to find a
different. We're just opening.
Ourselves, yeah. Everything we do is impressive.
It is all we do is win no matterwhat.
(01:28):
I am your Co host Kaylee Sibajo.And I'm Jenny Fan, your other Co
host. We're so excited to talk to you
today about allergies. So we want to go through
allergies just 'cause I have a lot of personal experience sort
(01:49):
of moving in and out of the allergy space.
And so that sort of inspired thethe reason for this episode.
You may remember when I was younger, we talked about this in
my like intro pod. I was allergic to dairy.
So it wasn't like I was lactose intolerant and I used to get a
tummy ache. It was like if I had dairy, I
(02:13):
would go into anaphylactic shockand it would trigger an asthma
attack and I would go to the hospital.
So I had that when I was very young.
Probably. I mean it probably, I don't know
when it began, but it was somewhere in my infancy and it
sort of lasted until I was probably 11 years old, eleven or
(02:35):
12 at least. That was the first time that I
ever ate dairy and didn't react.Anyway, I had that allergy when
I was young and didn't experience too many allergies
outside of that until I moved toSouthern California.
(02:57):
And so this is one of those environmental kind of things.
So I moved away from the food allergy thing.
It was really just the dairy andcoconut.
I was also allergic to coconut for a long time.
Oh my gosh I know I was oh I could not eat coconut.
It was another where I would like have breathing issues.
(03:17):
It was a big problem. Fast forward to a year ago when
I got my most recent allergy test.
I have no food allergies, no environmental allergies.
Oh. But I still experience hay fever
on a pretty regular basis. So what's hay fever?
(03:39):
So hay fever is when you have itchy eyes, itchy throat, your
face gets a little, your face isitchy and you have runny nose
and watery eyes and maybe your eyes sting a little bit.
And so that is like a typical reaction to seasonal allergies.
(04:00):
So when the Santa Ana winds comein and people are sneezing and
they're a little congested and their nose is running and their
face is itchy, that's hay fever.And I get that.
And I when I first moved to Southern California, I started
to get that and I didn't know why it just came on all of a
(04:24):
sudden. I did not have this problem when
I lived up north. And I was like, dude, what the
fuck is happening? And I could not figure it out.
Went to a lot of doctors, got a lot of tests for environmental
allergies and they were like, you're not allergic to anything.
Like you don't have an allergy to any of the things that are in
(04:46):
the environment in your area. But I was still having all of
these hay fever symptoms. And I mean, it gets so bad.
Like, have you ever sneezed so many times that you just end up
like peeing yourself? I've gotten really close
because, yeah, I usually sneeze in a series and it's not as
frequent where I get one big sneeze.
It's usually like a couple yeah in a row.
(05:08):
And it's just like unbearable sometimes and I'm just
constantly blowing my nose and then like my nostrils get all
dry and chapped and uncomfortable and my face is
red. And like I have, I run the whole
gamut of these symptoms, but I keep going to get allergy tests
and every single time they come back with like no allergies.
(05:28):
And so I'm so confused by this. It doesn't make any sense to me.
And what my allergy doctor told me last year is you are likely
having a reaction to an irritantand you don't actually have an
allergy. Interesting.
And so I'm trying to figure out,well, what is the irritant?
(05:53):
And an irritant could be any number of things.
It could be smoke. It could be, gosh, where is it?
Where is it? Where are my things?
OK, so it could be smoke of any kind.
You can have an infection, a sinus infection, or a different
type of infection. It could be chemicals or strong
(06:15):
odors. If you're sensitive to a perfume
or you're sensitive to a candle or you're sensitive to oils or
you're sensitive to your toilet cleaner, it could be changes in
temperature or humidity, which to me is a little surprising
that that would be considered anirritant, but it makes sense.
Yeah. And that could be it.
(06:36):
You know the. Thing that I think of is 'cause
you have show drums which makes your like membranes dry, yes,
which I imagine makes you more susceptive to like infections
because you don't have that protective layer.
And if you are in a, if humiditydrops dramatically, I can
imagine that could be like causean infection and cause like
(06:57):
irritant. That's what I'm imagining.
Yeah, I do get a lot of sinus infections and typically, yeah,
it's real dry in there, to the point where my allergy doctor
said that I should put Vaseline in my nostrils to try and keep
it moist. Or aquifer up sure is probably
another. One, however, I have read that
that's a really terrible idea because you can actually the
(07:22):
like the Vaseline or the aquiferor whatever you're using can get
like into your lungs and then you're like you're screwed.
You're screwed. So I'm sure you'd have to use a
lot of Vaseline in your nostrilsto get to that point.
But I read that and I was like, no, thank you.
I will just live with my dry nostrils.
Thank you so much. And I do get sinus infections a
(07:45):
lot. The other thing is that because
I do respond to irritants and I have a lot of sneezing and hay
fever symptoms from not allergies but something.
But The thing is that like if I take allergy medicine, if I take
Benadryl, if I take Claritin, ifI take Flonase, it works.
(08:07):
And so that's the other like if I'm taking an antihistamine, it
suppresses the symptoms and I nolonger have the sneezing in the
hay fever and the itchy, the water, whatever.
And so I'm like, if it's not an allergy, then why are the
antihistamines where I, I feel like it's a mystery.
I don't know. And so there's a couple of
different theories. The irritant thing is 1.
(08:28):
And so the problem with the dry nostrils is that if I use a
nasal spray, it hurts, it stingsreally bad.
And so that's why you should probably try to keep your stuff
moist, but I just don't have that luxury.
Another theory about the allergies is that it's not that
I am reacting to something in myenvironment, but that my immune
(08:53):
system is kind of in an overactive state and so it is
just reacting to everything. And for the period of time when
I was trying to get this allergytest and figure out what was
going on, it was also right around the time that I was
having all those issues with themedication that my liver enzymes
(09:17):
were spiking that I was I had that allergic reaction to the
medication. Yeah, you had like itchiness,
like all over. Your whole body broke out in
hives. So I guess I do have that
allergy too. I have an allergy to sulfa
medications, but all of that washappening and I was also having
(09:38):
these really extreme allergy like symptoms, right.
And so her theory was you're probably just in a state where
your immune system is going haywire and you need to regulate
your immune system and you need to get things back in order and
that's just going to take time. She said it could take up to six
(10:00):
months. And I think it did, you know, I
really do think it took up to six months.
Even then though, just this it always happens in the winter
that I get these allergies. Interesting.
Which is very odd because most people get allergies in the
spring and summer with pollen and all of those different
things. I don't have that.
Yeah, I don't have that problem.My allergies come in the winter.
(10:20):
You know, I actually, so I was in Ireland recently and I felt
like my skin was breaking out and I felt like unmoisturized
because Ireland is a little cooler.
Even though it's when I went andvisited, it wasn't wet, too wet
or too cold. Every restaurant, every hotel we
went in like heat was just like on black.
(10:43):
It was. Crazy.
No humidity indoors at all. So dry.
So I wake up like feeling super dry on my skin and my nose and
my mouth and stuff like that. So I wonder if that could be the
a factor of the lack of humidityin like spaces.
Yeah, I'm always thinking maybe I need to get a humidifier.
(11:05):
I've considered things like that.
But also just in general, you know, if you don't keep, if you
don't vacuum regularly, if you don't keep things tidy and
there's a lot of dust, stuff like that, you can really start
to experience some allergy like symptoms just because you got to
kind of clean up a little bit. I mean, there's also things that
you might not even see. I've heard of people who move
(11:28):
into an apartment and like the HVAC system like hasn't been
tidied up or cleaned or there might be like some sort of
irritant or mold in there too that ominous to them is causing
them health. Issues.
Yeah, that actually did happen here.
I had to get my whole HVAC system replaced because they
said there was moisture in therethat could be messing with
things. So I had to get a whole brand
(11:49):
new system. So I mean, there's also that
possibility. I also just this is my one gripe
about Socal. Well, no, not my one.
I have several, but here is one that I will offer.
Now the bathrooms here like rarely have windows and so those
(12:09):
bathrooms like and sometimes youdon't even have a fan and it
just gets so wet and moist and the mildew and the like.
You could smell it. Yes, you can.
It's just a cesspool in the bathrooms that we have.
And so that is a challenge to try and make sure that you're
maintaining cleanliness in the bathroom, like ventilation.
(12:31):
Yeah, in some form, yes. Especially because I'm in pain
all the time. I fucking hate cleaning the
bath. Like, I really need to hire
someone to just do. I need to, I need to treat
myself. I need to just have somebody
come in and do this for me on a regular basis because I fucking
hate it. Just.
Meet you a new place for another.
I'm thinking about it but also my mom will be here this week to
(12:55):
watch my cat and I know she's going to clean.
She loves to clean. So anyway, long winded way of
starting this episode and sayingthat I don't really have
allergies but I thought that I did and I take antihistamines as
though I do but I don't. And so we got a lot more to
cover on this topic. So while we have all of those
(13:19):
things that sort of inspired whywe talk about this, if you are a
person who has mystery allergies, I'm putting those in
air quotes. Maybe think about how your
immune system is doing. Maybe figure out if you have
some other stuff going on or if you do have an autoimmune
disease that you're aware of, itcould be contributing to the
(13:42):
symptoms that you're experiencing.
You also need to think about what's in your environment and
what kind of irritants are out there.
So, I mean, there are several things that can bring on these
symptoms. They are just so irritating,
though. It really is just awful to
sneeze every second of every day.
It's just the worst. So I sympathize.
(14:02):
I do. Yeah.
So we are going to talk about allergies though, and we're
going to talk about a lot of myths because allergies are
these things that, I mean, if you have kids, people are so
horrified of giving their kids food for the first time, right?
Feeding their babies for the first time.
Sometimes people will give theirkids peanut butter, like in
(14:24):
front of a hospital because they're just like, Oh my,
because allergies can, they can kill you.
They can totally take you out and they can be very serious.
So it's it's important for us tounderstand them.
However, I feel like they are not well understood.
I don't think people have a realgood grasp of what's going on
(14:46):
with allergies. And we're going to talk about
some myths and some things around that.
One of the most common ones thatI've heard, and I didn't even
realize this was a myth, but it is, is you can have a mild
allergy to something or a severeallergy to something.
At the end of the day, I think you just have an allergy.
(15:06):
There's no mild or severe about it.
It could just be that it takes longer for the allergy to fully
take effect. Yeah, but eventually, if you
don't treat that allergy in someway, it will lead to a severe
reaction. It could just be it's faster for
others. So that's something that you can
(15:29):
think about. But what if it's like the
difference between having a reaction and then it being
deadly? Would you say that could also be
you have an allergy, It's like minor and that you're you're not
going to die, right? Like you died, you die.
But OK, so here again, my body'sweird and it takes a long time
(15:51):
to respond to stuff. So that medication that I was
allergic to, I took it for a week before and I was good.
It was one week. At the end of that first week, I
left work and I felt really shitty, felt terrible.
I felt like I was getting sick. Something was coming.
(16:13):
I was coming down with something.
I was really achy, tired. I went home, just kind of fell
asleep, and then I got up, I went to the restroom and I saw
myself in the mirror and I had exploded in hives.
That's so scary, dude. But I was taking this medication
for a week already before that happened and so, and I'm sure if
(16:36):
I had waited another week beforeI had done anything about it, it
probably would have escalated tothe point where like, maybe I
was going to die. You know what I mean?
Yeah, the like exposure of the mountains.
Yeah, and so I could have 'causeI, I freaked out, dude, I, I,
you know, I'm here alone with mycat, looking at him, like, who's
(16:56):
going to watch you if I go to the ER?
Like, what's going to happen? You know, I'm calling the 24/7
nurse line. I'm telling them what's going
on. And they're, you know, I
wouldn't even go. I was so scared to go to sleep
because I thought I was like, not going to wake up.
But the nurse was like, you should be OK.
If you're not having any troublebreathing, you know, just you
(17:17):
should be fine. Take an antihistamine, go to
bed, whatever. If you wake up in the morning,
you still have symptoms, then you know, you can go to urgent
care. So there wasn't a lot of urgency
from the nurse that I had spokento.
I was able to go to bed for a few hours, but I woke up in the
morning and I was worse. I was worse.
(17:38):
Like it was traveling all the way down.
I looked like a chicken pox all over again.
You know, it was just, it was a wild experience.
And so then of course, I went tourgent care.
They gave me a, a steroid shot. They gave me an antihistamine
shot. They they treated me.
They did all the stuff, but if Ihad not gone to urgent care, I
(18:01):
think it eventually would have reached that point where he was
like Kaylee felt she died in hersleep.
So how do you? Know it with the medication
because those are you. You were already a weekend and
the doctors were like, do anything new, anything different
or do you want like a suspicion?I mean, I felt like it was
(18:21):
pretty clear to me because nothing else that I had done had
changed. This was the only change in my
routine, the only change in my diet, the only change in my
environment, anything. And so I was just kind of hyper
aware of how I might react to it.
So I always kind of suspected like, yeah, this is this is
(18:43):
what's going down. And the doctors agreed.
Yeah, there's very much a momentof you listening to your body
being like, this is not good. Yeah.
So I would not say that I have amild allergy to sulfa
medication. Even though I didn't go into
anaphylactic shock immediately, I feel like I would have gotten
(19:06):
there. Yeah.
It's just that my body, for whatever reason, just takes
forever to fucking respond to shit.
Like a week. Are you fucking kidding me?
I was taking that shit every day.
Every single day. I was taking this pill and it
was like, OK, it's been 7 days. We'll freak out now.
Yeah, like, what is going on in here?
I just have so many questions. I'm just.
(19:27):
Imagining your like your body cells as like little characters.
They're all just like, chilling,having a conversation and like
watching a baseball game of other cells and stuff like that.
And there's like something like literally nagging, like, hey,
yo, I'm here to fight you. And they're like, wait, what?
How long you've been there? Did you hear that?
(19:50):
That's what I'm imagining yourselves to be doing.
That could possibly be exactly what's going on.
I would love to see an animationof that.
I think it would be so fun. Yeah.
So I I don't know. I am only, I can only speak from
personal experience, but it's a very wacky thing to, to be
(20:12):
exposed to something for a full week before your body reacts.
So bizarre. I don't know.
I don't know what to tell you, but that kind of leads me into
something else that I want to talk about.
There's this common belief that you can only develop allergies
when you're a kid. Yeah.
(20:32):
And I think my experiences provethat that is not the case.
You can develop allergies, even though I don't technically have.
I just I do, but I, I again, I don't know.
But at the end of the day, I'm an adult and I have had allergic
reactions to things as an adult that I did not have allergic
reactions to as a child. And there's also this theory
(20:56):
that your cells sort of reset orregenerate every seven years.
And so there's a possibility that you could develop new
allergies every few years because your cells are kind of
doing whatever they want. I guess they're moving out of
the place where they've been hanging out.
They left the baseball game. You know, they've moved on to
(21:19):
bigger and better things. You can also develop allergies
if you get a bone marrow transplant.
So if you're someone with leukemia or another kind of
blood disorder or blood disease or blood cancer, you have to get
a bone marrow transplant. And if the person you're
receiving the bone marrow from had allergies, you will end up
(21:43):
getting those allergies. So yeah, this happened to a
friend of mine, got a bone marrow transplant and then
became allergic to cats because their donor was allergic to
cats. So the body is just mysterious,
you know, like you would not think that something like that
(22:05):
would carry over of all of the things, right?
Because the thing that's so frustrating about it is like you
get the bone marrow transplant as it's typically like a life
saving procedure and sometimes you don't live like you don't
survive. It doesn't save your life, but
sure as fuck you're going to be allergic to cats like or what?
(22:28):
Again, I don't know. It's wild.
I was hearing about how people are doing fecal transplant.
Oh yeah. For like their gut and things
like that. And it's sometimes affecting
people's mental health, like, yes, they'll have like an onset
of depression because somebody who with the donor had a little
bit of depression as well, whichis so fascinating to me so fast.
(22:50):
The gut and the mind are way more connected than you would.
Think and Speaking of people developing allergies that have
Co workers that have developed apeanut allergy, which he is so
upset by because he loves peanutbutter.
I'd like there's been times where we had that peanut butter
moose pie and he's like, what isthis?
(23:12):
It looks so good. I'm like you can't eat it.
It's peanut butter devastation. Devastated.
Yeah. And like he, he developed it.
This like a year ago. Wow.
He's in his late 20s. That's so upsetting.
And I had a classmate in high school who developed like shrimp
(23:34):
and shellfish allergy, which like in a Vietnamese community
is has a lot. That's so unfortunate.
That's really hard. Rough, rough.
So it can really happen at any point.
Yeah, for sure. And it can also happen during
pregnancy. Yeah, you can develop allergies
(23:54):
during pregnancy. You can develop allergies at any
stage in life. That's what I can imagine that
being really scary too. Like, yeah, eating your normal
things and then you suddenly youjust have hives and you're like,
what is this? What's happening?
That would be so awful. Not a fan of that.
The positive though is like likeI did as a child, you can grow
(24:17):
out of allergies. It's more common for you to grow
out of allergies to milk, egg, soy, and wheat.
Those ones are typically easier for people to get over, I guess
probably because we're exposed to them more often.
Micro dosing until your body gets used to.
It no, that's a thing. We'll get into that.
(24:37):
But it is harder to grow out of allergies to peanut, tree nuts,
fish and shellfish. Those allergies are typically
lifelong. So there are different degrees
of tenure with the allergy moving into your body, going to
the baseball game, hitting up a double header, maybe never
(25:00):
leaving, becoming an umpire, staying in the league for the
rest of your life, you know, so those are some things, but there
are treatments for allergies, and one of those is, oh, gosh,
what is it called? Immunotherapy.
Yeah, that's the word. Yeah.
So you can actually receive immunotherapy for allergies and
(25:20):
it is like what you said, you'rebasically micro dosing whatever
it is that you're allergic to and increasing your tolerance to
it so that you're less sensitiveoverall.
And then the symptom of your allergy won't be as severe.
I'll is initially right. So and then maybe you'll grow
out of it. So you can use immunotherapy to
(25:42):
do that and hopefully you'll be able to move, move beyond the
allergy, unless it's fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts.
Yeah, I think I've had another friend who has gone through
immunotherapy and had to get shots really pretty regularly to
(26:02):
work over a specific allergy. And then I think hopefully at a
certain point he only has to go in like once every quarter and
then ideally at some point wherehe won't have to do it for a
long period of time. Yeah, like where it's like an or
something, if, if even that. Oh, that's great.
I think it was for like a pollenallergy, yeah.
I know some people get those if they have pets and they're
(26:25):
allergic to the pet and they'll get the shots.
That's common some. But yeah, sometimes the pollen
is really bad or you're just in an environment where it's
elevated in your area. Because of, you know, global
warming and the fact that we planted more meal plants and
trees because we didn't want free fruit in society, because
(26:47):
capitalism. So we just have a lot of sperm
pollen. Yeah, floating around, swimming
through the air, getting in our nostrils.
Yeah. That's the whole topic.
It really is. Let's see, what else do we want
to say about allergies? I I've heard of people
(27:08):
recommending to help with something environmental pollen,
allergies to eat. Local honey, Yeah.
Or bee pollen. Bee pollen, Yes.
Yeah. My I had a coworker who did
that. He used to hit up the farmers
market in his neighborhood, and he would ask one of the vendors
who typically had honey and honeycomb if they had any bee
(27:30):
pollen. And he would buy the bee pollen
from this vendor, and he would add it into his tea and other
things. And he said it totally helped
him. Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah, I, I, that was something that I recall folks at
my how you see Santa Barbara doing, we have a big
environmental studies program there.
(27:51):
And I believe Santa Barbara has a very weird ecosystem that's
very unique compared to the restof California.
And so people who didn't have allergies and other places when
they come there, they'll have allergies or vice versa.
And I recall that when I was a kid, I used to like always have
(28:12):
a stuffy nose and I have allergies and stuff.
And then I went to Santa Barbaraand I never had that issue.
And then I moved back home and never had a stuffy nose like
that. It could also be like, that was
my old house. So maybe it was like my old
house had something going on. Maybe.
Maybe. Again, it's it's kind of a
mystery at the end of the day. A lot of allergists will say
(28:36):
that the individual's immune system is going to determine
like how you respond or react tocertain things.
There's really no indicator thatyou can just kind of use as a
blanket standardization for everyone.
It really depends on you as an individual.
So if you do, like I was saying before, if you have chronic
(28:57):
illness or you have autoimmune issues, then you know you do
have an increased probability ofexperiencing allergic symptoms
just because your immune system is already sort of on high
alert. And it's also confused and
attacking things that it's not supposed to.
And so while it's attacking things that it's not supposed
(29:19):
to, it's probably not paying attention to the allergens that
are coming in. So it, you know, it's just
something that you kind of have to be aware of and you have to
delicately balance all these different things.
And I don't know, the allergist that I saw was she was as
helpful as she could be, but at the end of the day, she was
like, I don't know why you're having these symptoms.
(29:41):
Like, I don't know, I just thinkyour immune system is going
crazy. And I was like, bitch, don't I
know it. So fun times, fun adventures in
allergy land. I'm grateful every day though
that like I don't. I didn't even say this.
I'm not allergic to coconut anymore.
(30:02):
Oh yeah, you mentioned you had your a first meal.
Yeah, after your appointment. And what was it?
It was Thai Curry, bitch. It was Thai Curry, dude.
OK, let me tell. I love Curry.
I love Curry of all types. I do not discriminate.
I'm a Curry girl through and through and I've never been able
to have Thai Curry because it's made with coconut milk.
(30:22):
Have I made you Vietnamese Curryor Vicky's?
No, because of the coconut. Milk.
Vicky always wanted to make Curry for me, or she would send
me recipes and I'd be like, girl, I can't, I can't.
No, you can. I know.
And so that was an amazing turn out from this most recent
allergy test. And again, I don't know what
happened because I've been allergic to coconut as long as I
(30:44):
can remember and I had that whole thing happened.
This is probably that incident with the soap and whatever that
was probably in like 20/16/2017.It wasn't that long ago, but it
was seven years ago. So I don't know if there's any
truth to that seven-year myth orseven-year theory, but yeah, I,
(31:08):
I got the test back and I, I looked and it said no reaction
to coconut. And I was like, is this real?
And she's like, this is real, dude, we just did it.
Like, are you kidding? I have a picture of my back too,
that I can share. And it, it, there's nothing
like, it just looks like a bunchof little marker dots on my back
like nothing happened. So yeah, I got some Thai Curry
(31:30):
and I loved it. And now I put coconut milk in
fucking everything. I make a lot of recipes when
Danny comes over and I use coconut milk all the fucking
time. It's so easy and so many recipes
you know, like another thing that you might want to consider
if you are having an overactive immune system or whatever is
like doing an elimination diet. Was it expensive to get the
(31:53):
allergy test done? Yes, which is probably which is
why the reason I say that is whythat's why I think doing an
elimination diet could also be helpful if you can't send an
allergy test right away. Yeah, there are different types.
I went for the full throttle. They they do the whole thing.
They cover your entire back in samples, little pricks to all
(32:18):
these different things. And they, you know, I had to go
in two different weeks. So one week they do the food
version and then the following week they do the environmental.
So you can't do them at the sametime.
And yeah, it was real expensive.And I actually, it took me until
probably, I don't know, maybe December or January of this year
(32:43):
before I actually paid it off 'cause I was paying it off in
monthly increments, 'cause it was a, it was a big old bill.
So, I mean, I don't know what your version of big is, but for
me it was like 620 something dollars.
And I was just like, are you serious?
All for them to tell me that there's nothing going on.
(33:04):
Look. At that, you can't eat coconut
but I. Can't eat coconut.
But yeah, I spent all that moneyfor them to tell me that I don't
have even though I'm still having all these.
It was whatever. It's fine.
It is what it is. And that's also with insurance,
just FYI, So something to keep in mind.
It was expensive. The elimination diet's a good
(33:25):
way to go there. There's really no cure for
allergies. If you grow out of them, you get
lucky. Great.
I wish that for everybody. But there's no, there's no
proven process or something where I could tell you if you
want to grow out of this allergyto coconut, just do this.
There's none of that. You just your body is going to
(33:47):
do what it wants. And if you're lucky enough to
grow out of those allergies, amazing.
If you're not, though, there's no cure for allergies, and so
you need to reduce your exposureto your allergen because
allergies are really bad for your immune system.
(34:09):
And like, we know they can lead to death.
So you do have to take them seriously.
It's not just like a little man,I'm so tired of sneezing or, you
know, it's so unfortunate that Ican't be around this dog or that
I can't have oranges or apples like Sabrina Carpenter or
whatever. You really do have to stay away
(34:29):
from those things. Yeah.
So that you can give your body achance to operate at its at its
highest function. And if you have friends with
allergies don't be like trying to micro dose them if they don't
know. So Charlie my fiance is allergic
to alcohol. He'll actually get hives,
especially from dark liquor. And he I sometimes will have
(34:52):
moments of peer pressure like I didn't want, I wanted to ensure
that I could. I'm like, but now you're
uncomfortable. Now you're hiding in a bathroom
and just scratching your belly. So don't be pushing people.
It's it's, it's, you never know how dangerous it is, especially
if it's like something like alcohol or once everybody gets
belligerent, you don't know whatto do if situations were to
(35:15):
turn. Really bad.
Totally. Yeah.
It's important to respect the boundaries that someone else has
to put on themselves if they do have an allergy, if they are
experiencing something. You never know.
It's always better to err on theside of caution, we say, as
people who have experienced veryrisky things in the past.
(35:39):
Yeah, I know that like some people culturally like don't
take allergies really seriously.I know that gluten allergy,
there's other people that are have gluten allergies have
celiac diseases and not everybody is really good at like
being aware of those things. Forthcoming.
I have a story. So at one of the companies I was
(36:01):
at previously I had a Co worker who had a Duten allergy and we
had we get meal. We got catered lunches every
once in a while and she was already finishing her meal when
she gets a message over e-mail that the meal that she thought
was gluten free in fact was not gluten free.
(36:24):
They apologize for the inconvenience to what she was
having a freak out. I'm like, Oh no.
That's so bad. Oh no.
And so she was like, I'd let us all know if like, hey, if
something were to be weird, if like I stopped breathing or
something like that. Have EpiPen, like this is how
you administer it. And I remember being there like
(36:47):
kind of feeling really tense. Like now that I know this
information, I feel very tense. It's stressed out.
We did actually have to administer it and I actually had
to take go to it with her to thehospital.
I don't think we did. When it was administered, it was
a full amount because I think ifI recall correctly, another Co
(37:10):
worker administered it and she'slike OK, that's good.
And then she goes wait, was that10 seconds?
And I was like, that was not tenseconds.
And then we went to the hospital.
We became really good friends after that.
It was nice. Yeah.
So, yeah, gluten is one that people do not take seriously.
Yeah, often they feel like it's this crunchy granola California
(37:31):
thing that we just don't want toeat gluten without realizing
that there's an actual medical reason that people are not
consuming it. So let's just put that whole
thing to bed. It's pretty serious if you have
a gluten allergy. Like, come on, people.
Pens are expensive. They.
Are epipens are like 400 bucks? It's so.
(37:51):
Expensive. Yeah, I have one that I probably
don't need any more. You should.
Let me know where it is it. Expires too.
Yeah, I'm sure that should. I don't know.
I got it last year. We'll have to look at it.
It's like right in there. Anyway, All right, I think we've
covered pretty good amount of stuff today.
A good amount of stuff, a lot ofstuff.
Yeah, that story's wild that I'mnot over that.
(38:15):
Wait, I think there are a coupleother questions I had.
I know that we were talking about pets and stuff earlier.
Are there in fact hypoallergenicbreeds of animals?
Is that it fit? Oh, your face tells me no.
(38:35):
There there are no true hypoallergenic dogs, or cats at
least, which are typically the ones that people are asking
about. Dander in cats and dogs is not
influenced by their length of fur or hair or how much they
shed. That's not like if you get a
(38:59):
hairless cat. It still has like.
It still has dander and yeah, like secretions, just natural
oils and things like that. That it, yeah, you could still
be allergic to that. So I know there's a, you know,
sometimes breeders will claim like, oh, this is a
hypoallergenic animal. You can take it home.
(39:24):
Technically, no, not recommended.
Like if you're allergic to dogs,you're just allergic to dogs.
So maybe just don't try to get ahypoallergenic dog and just
don't have a dog. If you're allergic to cats,
you're allergic to cats. So yeah, that is considered a
myth. The hypoallergenic pet.
(39:46):
Interesting to know. Yeah, that's very in right now.
It really is. There's so many breeds that's
like specifically a lot of people are getting for that
reason. You know who you are, you know
what they are. Yeah, there's another myth kind
of related to that where for some reason people think if you
(40:09):
have a short haired animal, thenyou're not going to be allergic
to it. And like I just talked about how
that's not true, but people believe that because the allergy
comes from the dead skin cell. So yeah, I like you could be
allergic to me for all I know. Oh.
That reminds me of the story. Oh, my God.
(40:30):
I recall in middle school, it was middle school or high school
where like there was this couplethat they were like new, a new
couple. And I believe, I don't know if
this is true, but I remember hearing a story of like, yeah,
he would like graze his arm on her arm and then she'd get itchy
afterwards. And I was like, I was like,
(40:53):
they're allergic to each other. She's like, I don't know that's
true if you can be allergic to other humans.
Well, you can be allergic to semen.
Did you know that? Yes, I did.
Yeah. And latex.
Yes. Latex.
Yeah. Yeah.
And unfortunately, there's only a couple of ways you can find
(41:13):
out about those. I mean, the latex is a little
bit easier, but semen, I mean, you're really only finding out
one way. Yeah, it's.
Going to be a rough. Yes, but that is a possibility.
You can be allergic to that. I don't know if it's the
proteins that are in it or what,but that is a thing, yeah.
(41:38):
I'm more sorry I have to ask forif it's OK to share it, but I
won't say their names. I had a a friend who kept
getting Utis and wasn't sure understanding why like they were
they're having this issue and soshe wants to use student health
and while she has student health, the doctor is like, oh,
(42:02):
I think you're allergic to latexand they were having discussion.
She leaves student health to find our housemate.
Hey, I got a bunch of free catnip.
Just turn it off. Which are all, in fact, latex.
But there are goat skin condoms for those that are allergic to
(42:24):
latex. Yeah, it's an option.
They're just going back to like medieval times when they were
using pigs intestines and yeah, yeah.
At least now we have more than like you can dispose of them.
You didn't have to like re wash them.
And reuse them. I didn't want to think about
that. I don't want to think about that
part. Oh, Zerbel.
Oh, no. Oh no.
(42:46):
Don't we live in great times where we don't have to rewash
sheepskin condoms? Yes, wow, I feel so privileged
in this moment. Can you imagine traveling back
in time and having to deal with that shit?
Oh, oh, oh, oh, you know, peoplewill go to great lengths.
(43:07):
I will tell you that. Contraception.
Yeah. Yes.
Wow. If only my grandfather had done
the same. And that'll.
That's a plug for my new pocket.I'm just kidding.
I don't have a name for you. All right.
(43:30):
I think. Do you have any other questions
about allergies? I think that's it, and I had
some great stories. I'm glad that I was able to
share and contribute to this conversation.
Yeah, I love that. I think that's great.
I'm trying to run through my brain and see if there's
anything else I want to share about allergies.
Right. I think we've covered most
things. Yeah.
At the end of the day, your body's mystery and.
(43:51):
And it transforms apparently every seven years.
Yeah, and you're, I'm going to know better than anyone else how
you're going to react to things,so just keep that in mind.
Set your boundaries. Reduce your exposure to things
that you're allergic to. And if you're not allergic to
stuff, support other people thatare.
Yes, Don't give them a hard time.
(44:13):
They can't control it. They really can't.
We did it, yeah. We did another episode.
Oh yeah, celebrity segment. Oh, that's right.
OK, so my celebrity segment. So this is a person who has
pretty extensive allergies. They have a lot of allergies and
they regularly carry an EpiPen with them like in their bag on a
(44:36):
daily basis. This is just something they
always have with them because they have so many food
allergies. So probably very similar to your
Co worker. This person is an actress.
So they are most known for theirrole in a show that ended in
2018. Yes.
Anyway, it's a Shonda Rhimes show and this person was the
(45:01):
star of that show and they have a ton of allergies.
I think that's enough of it. If you know who this person is,
go ahead and comment, send us a message, let us know that you're
listening all the way to the endof an episode because I'll feel
so proud. And then we'll reveal who it is
at the top of episode 8. Yep.
(45:21):
OK. Yeah, we had a good time.
I like talking about my mysterious allergy, not allergy
situation. Hopefully this was helpful in
some way. It's.
Also nice to go down memory laneand all of like.
Yeah, totally. Our bodies are miraculous.
I've said that probably 6 times.I should have a tally for that
too. Our bodies, like our mind also
(45:43):
transforms as we get older. Yes, it's crazy.
Anyway, thanks for being here. We hope you had a good time.
We're looking forward to seeing you in episode 8.
Until then, stay out of pain. Yeah, you.
Did it? That was a good one.
What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Painfully
Podcast. This is episode 7, and today
we're talking about allergies. One quick note, we recorded this
over a year ago, so I'm going tobe referencing things like an
allergy test that I took a year prior.
We're talking like 2023 at this point.
(00:21):
OK, it's been a minute. So there's that, but we're
talking about allergies and we're talking about me having
them, me growing out of them, methinking I had them, not having
them, and what that experience has been like and how I've
navigated that. We're gonna talk about some
myths related to allergies that we hopefully can bust for you.
(00:44):
And Danny's got some great stories to share.
Overall, I think this is this isa good one.
So I'm glad you all are tuning in.
And with that, let's get into it.
(01:08):
Welcome back everybody to Painfully podcast.
This is episode 7. We are really powering through
these. I'm so excited.
I feel like I say this every single time I got to find a
different. We're just opening.
Ourselves, yeah. Everything we do is impressive.
It is all we do is win no matterwhat.
(01:28):
I am your Co host Kaylee Sibajo.And I'm Jenny Fan, your other Co
host. We're so excited to talk to you
today about allergies. So we want to go through
allergies just 'cause I have a lot of personal experience sort
(01:49):
of moving in and out of the allergy space.
And so that sort of inspired thethe reason for this episode.
You may remember when I was younger, we talked about this in
my like intro pod. I was allergic to dairy.
So it wasn't like I was lactose intolerant and I used to get a
tummy ache. It was like if I had dairy, I
(02:13):
would go into anaphylactic shockand it would trigger an asthma
attack and I would go to the hospital.
So I had that when I was very young.
Probably. I mean it probably, I don't know
when it began, but it was somewhere in my infancy and it
sort of lasted until I was probably 11 years old, eleven or
(02:35):
12 at least. That was the first time that I
ever ate dairy and didn't react.Anyway, I had that allergy when
I was young and didn't experience too many allergies
outside of that until I moved toSouthern California.
(02:57):
And so this is one of those environmental kind of things.
So I moved away from the food allergy thing.
It was really just the dairy andcoconut.
I was also allergic to coconut for a long time.
Oh my gosh I know I was oh I could not eat coconut.
It was another where I would like have breathing issues.
(03:17):
It was a big problem. Fast forward to a year ago when
I got my most recent allergy test.
I have no food allergies, no environmental allergies.
Oh. But I still experience hay fever
on a pretty regular basis. So what's hay fever?
(03:39):
So hay fever is when you have itchy eyes, itchy throat, your
face gets a little, your face isitchy and you have runny nose
and watery eyes and maybe your eyes sting a little bit.
And so that is like a typical reaction to seasonal allergies.
(04:00):
So when the Santa Ana winds comein and people are sneezing and
they're a little congested and their nose is running and their
face is itchy, that's hay fever.And I get that.
And I when I first moved to Southern California, I started
to get that and I didn't know why it just came on all of a
(04:24):
sudden. I did not have this problem when
I lived up north. And I was like, dude, what the
fuck is happening? And I could not figure it out.
Went to a lot of doctors, got a lot of tests for environmental
allergies and they were like, you're not allergic to anything.
Like you don't have an allergy to any of the things that are in
(04:46):
the environment in your area. But I was still having all of
these hay fever symptoms. And I mean, it gets so bad.
Like, have you ever sneezed so many times that you just end up
like peeing yourself? I've gotten really close
because, yeah, I usually sneeze in a series and it's not as
frequent where I get one big sneeze.
It's usually like a couple yeah in a row.
(05:08):
And it's just like unbearable sometimes and I'm just
constantly blowing my nose and then like my nostrils get all
dry and chapped and uncomfortable and my face is
red. And like I have, I run the whole
gamut of these symptoms, but I keep going to get allergy tests
and every single time they come back with like no allergies.
(05:28):
And so I'm so confused by this. It doesn't make any sense to me.
And what my allergy doctor told me last year is you are likely
having a reaction to an irritantand you don't actually have an
allergy. Interesting.
And so I'm trying to figure out,well, what is the irritant?
(05:53):
And an irritant could be any number of things.
It could be smoke. It could be, gosh, where is it?
Where is it? Where are my things?
OK, so it could be smoke of any kind.
You can have an infection, a sinus infection, or a different
type of infection. It could be chemicals or strong
(06:15):
odors. If you're sensitive to a perfume
or you're sensitive to a candle or you're sensitive to oils or
you're sensitive to your toilet cleaner, it could be changes in
temperature or humidity, which to me is a little surprising
that that would be considered anirritant, but it makes sense.
Yeah. And that could be it.
(06:36):
You know the. Thing that I think of is 'cause
you have show drums which makes your like membranes dry, yes,
which I imagine makes you more susceptive to like infections
because you don't have that protective layer.
And if you are in a, if humiditydrops dramatically, I can
imagine that could be like causean infection and cause like
(06:57):
irritant. That's what I'm imagining.
Yeah, I do get a lot of sinus infections and typically, yeah,
it's real dry in there, to the point where my allergy doctor
said that I should put Vaseline in my nostrils to try and keep
it moist. Or aquifer up sure is probably
another. One, however, I have read that
that's a really terrible idea because you can actually the
(07:22):
like the Vaseline or the aquiferor whatever you're using can get
like into your lungs and then you're like you're screwed.
You're screwed. So I'm sure you'd have to use a
lot of Vaseline in your nostrilsto get to that point.
But I read that and I was like, no, thank you.
I will just live with my dry nostrils.
Thank you so much. And I do get sinus infections a
(07:45):
lot. The other thing is that because
I do respond to irritants and I have a lot of sneezing and hay
fever symptoms from not allergies but something.
But The thing is that like if I take allergy medicine, if I take
Benadryl, if I take Claritin, ifI take Flonase, it works.
(08:07):
And so that's the other like if I'm taking an antihistamine, it
suppresses the symptoms and I nolonger have the sneezing in the
hay fever and the itchy, the water, whatever.
And so I'm like, if it's not an allergy, then why are the
antihistamines where I, I feel like it's a mystery.
I don't know. And so there's a couple of
different theories. The irritant thing is 1.
(08:28):
And so the problem with the dry nostrils is that if I use a
nasal spray, it hurts, it stingsreally bad.
And so that's why you should probably try to keep your stuff
moist, but I just don't have that luxury.
Another theory about the allergies is that it's not that
I am reacting to something in myenvironment, but that my immune
(08:53):
system is kind of in an overactive state and so it is
just reacting to everything. And for the period of time when
I was trying to get this allergytest and figure out what was
going on, it was also right around the time that I was
having all those issues with themedication that my liver enzymes
(09:17):
were spiking that I was I had that allergic reaction to the
medication. Yeah, you had like itchiness,
like all over. Your whole body broke out in
hives. So I guess I do have that
allergy too. I have an allergy to sulfa
medications, but all of that washappening and I was also having
(09:38):
these really extreme allergy like symptoms, right.
And so her theory was you're probably just in a state where
your immune system is going haywire and you need to regulate
your immune system and you need to get things back in order and
that's just going to take time. She said it could take up to six
(10:00):
months. And I think it did, you know, I
really do think it took up to six months.
Even then though, just this it always happens in the winter
that I get these allergies. Interesting.
Which is very odd because most people get allergies in the
spring and summer with pollen and all of those different
things. I don't have that.
Yeah, I don't have that problem.My allergies come in the winter.
(10:20):
You know, I actually, so I was in Ireland recently and I felt
like my skin was breaking out and I felt like unmoisturized
because Ireland is a little cooler.
Even though it's when I went andvisited, it wasn't wet, too wet
or too cold. Every restaurant, every hotel we
went in like heat was just like on black.
(10:43):
It was. Crazy.
No humidity indoors at all. So dry.
So I wake up like feeling super dry on my skin and my nose and
my mouth and stuff like that. So I wonder if that could be the
a factor of the lack of humidityin like spaces.
Yeah, I'm always thinking maybe I need to get a humidifier.
(11:05):
I've considered things like that.
But also just in general, you know, if you don't keep, if you
don't vacuum regularly, if you don't keep things tidy and
there's a lot of dust, stuff like that, you can really start
to experience some allergy like symptoms just because you got to
kind of clean up a little bit. I mean, there's also things that
you might not even see. I've heard of people who move
(11:28):
into an apartment and like the HVAC system like hasn't been
tidied up or cleaned or there might be like some sort of
irritant or mold in there too that ominous to them is causing
them health. Issues.
Yeah, that actually did happen here.
I had to get my whole HVAC system replaced because they
said there was moisture in therethat could be messing with
things. So I had to get a whole brand
(11:49):
new system. So I mean, there's also that
possibility. I also just this is my one gripe
about Socal. Well, no, not my one.
I have several, but here is one that I will offer.
Now the bathrooms here like rarely have windows and so those
(12:09):
bathrooms like and sometimes youdon't even have a fan and it
just gets so wet and moist and the mildew and the like.
You could smell it. Yes, you can.
It's just a cesspool in the bathrooms that we have.
And so that is a challenge to try and make sure that you're
maintaining cleanliness in the bathroom, like ventilation.
(12:31):
Yeah, in some form, yes. Especially because I'm in pain
all the time. I fucking hate cleaning the
bath. Like, I really need to hire
someone to just do. I need to, I need to treat
myself. I need to just have somebody
come in and do this for me on a regular basis because I fucking
hate it. Just.
Meet you a new place for another.
I'm thinking about it but also my mom will be here this week to
(12:55):
watch my cat and I know she's going to clean.
She loves to clean. So anyway, long winded way of
starting this episode and sayingthat I don't really have
allergies but I thought that I did and I take antihistamines as
though I do but I don't. And so we got a lot more to
cover on this topic. So while we have all of those
(13:19):
things that sort of inspired whywe talk about this, if you are a
person who has mystery allergies, I'm putting those in
air quotes. Maybe think about how your
immune system is doing. Maybe figure out if you have
some other stuff going on or if you do have an autoimmune
disease that you're aware of, itcould be contributing to the
(13:42):
symptoms that you're experiencing.
You also need to think about what's in your environment and
what kind of irritants are out there.
So, I mean, there are several things that can bring on these
symptoms. They are just so irritating,
though. It really is just awful to
sneeze every second of every day.
It's just the worst. So I sympathize.
(14:02):
I do. Yeah.
So we are going to talk about allergies though, and we're
going to talk about a lot of myths because allergies are
these things that, I mean, if you have kids, people are so
horrified of giving their kids food for the first time, right?
Feeding their babies for the first time.
Sometimes people will give theirkids peanut butter, like in
(14:24):
front of a hospital because they're just like, Oh my,
because allergies can, they can kill you.
They can totally take you out and they can be very serious.
So it's it's important for us tounderstand them.
However, I feel like they are not well understood.
I don't think people have a realgood grasp of what's going on
(14:46):
with allergies. And we're going to talk about
some myths and some things around that.
One of the most common ones thatI've heard, and I didn't even
realize this was a myth, but it is, is you can have a mild
allergy to something or a severeallergy to something.
At the end of the day, I think you just have an allergy.
(15:06):
There's no mild or severe about it.
It could just be that it takes longer for the allergy to fully
take effect. Yeah, but eventually, if you
don't treat that allergy in someway, it will lead to a severe
reaction. It could just be it's faster for
others. So that's something that you can
(15:29):
think about. But what if it's like the
difference between having a reaction and then it being
deadly? Would you say that could also be
you have an allergy, It's like minor and that you're you're not
going to die, right? Like you died, you die.
But OK, so here again, my body'sweird and it takes a long time
(15:51):
to respond to stuff. So that medication that I was
allergic to, I took it for a week before and I was good.
It was one week. At the end of that first week, I
left work and I felt really shitty, felt terrible.
I felt like I was getting sick. Something was coming.
(16:13):
I was coming down with something.
I was really achy, tired. I went home, just kind of fell
asleep, and then I got up, I went to the restroom and I saw
myself in the mirror and I had exploded in hives.
That's so scary, dude. But I was taking this medication
for a week already before that happened and so, and I'm sure if
(16:36):
I had waited another week beforeI had done anything about it, it
probably would have escalated tothe point where like, maybe I
was going to die. You know what I mean?
Yeah, the like exposure of the mountains.
Yeah, and so I could have 'causeI, I freaked out, dude, I, I,
you know, I'm here alone with mycat, looking at him, like, who's
(16:56):
going to watch you if I go to the ER?
Like, what's going to happen? You know, I'm calling the 24/7
nurse line. I'm telling them what's going
on. And they're, you know, I
wouldn't even go. I was so scared to go to sleep
because I thought I was like, not going to wake up.
But the nurse was like, you should be OK.
If you're not having any troublebreathing, you know, just you
(17:17):
should be fine. Take an antihistamine, go to
bed, whatever. If you wake up in the morning,
you still have symptoms, then you know, you can go to urgent
care. So there wasn't a lot of urgency
from the nurse that I had spokento.
I was able to go to bed for a few hours, but I woke up in the
morning and I was worse. I was worse.
(17:38):
Like it was traveling all the way down.
I looked like a chicken pox all over again.
You know, it was just, it was a wild experience.
And so then of course, I went tourgent care.
They gave me a, a steroid shot. They gave me an antihistamine
shot. They they treated me.
They did all the stuff, but if Ihad not gone to urgent care, I
(18:01):
think it eventually would have reached that point where he was
like Kaylee felt she died in hersleep.
So how do you? Know it with the medication
because those are you. You were already a weekend and
the doctors were like, do anything new, anything different
or do you want like a suspicion?I mean, I felt like it was
(18:21):
pretty clear to me because nothing else that I had done had
changed. This was the only change in my
routine, the only change in my diet, the only change in my
environment, anything. And so I was just kind of hyper
aware of how I might react to it.
So I always kind of suspected like, yeah, this is this is
(18:43):
what's going down. And the doctors agreed.
Yeah, there's very much a momentof you listening to your body
being like, this is not good. Yeah.
So I would not say that I have amild allergy to sulfa
medication. Even though I didn't go into
anaphylactic shock immediately, I feel like I would have gotten
(19:06):
there. Yeah.
It's just that my body, for whatever reason, just takes
forever to fucking respond to shit.
Like a week. Are you fucking kidding me?
I was taking that shit every day.
Every single day. I was taking this pill and it
was like, OK, it's been 7 days. We'll freak out now.
Yeah, like, what is going on in here?
I just have so many questions. I'm just.
(19:27):
Imagining your like your body cells as like little characters.
They're all just like, chilling,having a conversation and like
watching a baseball game of other cells and stuff like that.
And there's like something like literally nagging, like, hey,
yo, I'm here to fight you. And they're like, wait, what?
How long you've been there? Did you hear that?
(19:50):
That's what I'm imagining yourselves to be doing.
That could possibly be exactly what's going on.
I would love to see an animationof that.
I think it would be so fun. Yeah.
So I I don't know. I am only, I can only speak from
personal experience, but it's a very wacky thing to, to be
(20:12):
exposed to something for a full week before your body reacts.
So bizarre. I don't know.
I don't know what to tell you, but that kind of leads me into
something else that I want to talk about.
There's this common belief that you can only develop allergies
when you're a kid. Yeah.
(20:32):
And I think my experiences provethat that is not the case.
You can develop allergies, even though I don't technically have.
I just I do, but I, I again, I don't know.
But at the end of the day, I'm an adult and I have had allergic
reactions to things as an adult that I did not have allergic
reactions to as a child. And there's also this theory
(20:56):
that your cells sort of reset orregenerate every seven years.
And so there's a possibility that you could develop new
allergies every few years because your cells are kind of
doing whatever they want. I guess they're moving out of
the place where they've been hanging out.
They left the baseball game. You know, they've moved on to
(21:19):
bigger and better things. You can also develop allergies
if you get a bone marrow transplant.
So if you're someone with leukemia or another kind of
blood disorder or blood disease or blood cancer, you have to get
a bone marrow transplant. And if the person you're
receiving the bone marrow from had allergies, you will end up
(21:43):
getting those allergies. So yeah, this happened to a
friend of mine, got a bone marrow transplant and then
became allergic to cats because their donor was allergic to
cats. So the body is just mysterious,
you know, like you would not think that something like that
(22:05):
would carry over of all of the things, right?
Because the thing that's so frustrating about it is like you
get the bone marrow transplant as it's typically like a life
saving procedure and sometimes you don't live like you don't
survive. It doesn't save your life, but
sure as fuck you're going to be allergic to cats like or what?
(22:28):
Again, I don't know. It's wild.
I was hearing about how people are doing fecal transplant.
Oh yeah. For like their gut and things
like that. And it's sometimes affecting
people's mental health, like, yes, they'll have like an onset
of depression because somebody who with the donor had a little
bit of depression as well, whichis so fascinating to me so fast.
(22:50):
The gut and the mind are way more connected than you would.
Think and Speaking of people developing allergies that have
Co workers that have developed apeanut allergy, which he is so
upset by because he loves peanutbutter.
I'd like there's been times where we had that peanut butter
moose pie and he's like, what isthis?
(23:12):
It looks so good. I'm like you can't eat it.
It's peanut butter devastation. Devastated.
Yeah. And like he, he developed it.
This like a year ago. Wow.
He's in his late 20s. That's so upsetting.
And I had a classmate in high school who developed like shrimp
(23:34):
and shellfish allergy, which like in a Vietnamese community
is has a lot. That's so unfortunate.
That's really hard. Rough, rough.
So it can really happen at any point.
Yeah, for sure. And it can also happen during
pregnancy. Yeah, you can develop allergies
(23:54):
during pregnancy. You can develop allergies at any
stage in life. That's what I can imagine that
being really scary too. Like, yeah, eating your normal
things and then you suddenly youjust have hives and you're like,
what is this? What's happening?
That would be so awful. Not a fan of that.
The positive though is like likeI did as a child, you can grow
(24:17):
out of allergies. It's more common for you to grow
out of allergies to milk, egg, soy, and wheat.
Those ones are typically easier for people to get over, I guess
probably because we're exposed to them more often.
Micro dosing until your body gets used to.
It no, that's a thing. We'll get into that.
(24:37):
But it is harder to grow out of allergies to peanut, tree nuts,
fish and shellfish. Those allergies are typically
lifelong. So there are different degrees
of tenure with the allergy moving into your body, going to
the baseball game, hitting up a double header, maybe never
(25:00):
leaving, becoming an umpire, staying in the league for the
rest of your life, you know, so those are some things, but there
are treatments for allergies, and one of those is, oh, gosh,
what is it called? Immunotherapy.
Yeah, that's the word. Yeah.
So you can actually receive immunotherapy for allergies and
(25:20):
it is like what you said, you'rebasically micro dosing whatever
it is that you're allergic to and increasing your tolerance to
it so that you're less sensitiveoverall.
And then the symptom of your allergy won't be as severe.
I'll is initially right. So and then maybe you'll grow
out of it. So you can use immunotherapy to
(25:42):
do that and hopefully you'll be able to move, move beyond the
allergy, unless it's fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts.
Yeah, I think I've had another friend who has gone through
immunotherapy and had to get shots really pretty regularly to
(26:02):
work over a specific allergy. And then I think hopefully at a
certain point he only has to go in like once every quarter and
then ideally at some point wherehe won't have to do it for a
long period of time. Yeah, like where it's like an or
something, if, if even that. Oh, that's great.
I think it was for like a pollenallergy, yeah.
I know some people get those if they have pets and they're
(26:25):
allergic to the pet and they'll get the shots.
That's common some. But yeah, sometimes the pollen
is really bad or you're just in an environment where it's
elevated in your area. Because of, you know, global
warming and the fact that we planted more meal plants and
trees because we didn't want free fruit in society, because
(26:47):
capitalism. So we just have a lot of sperm
pollen. Yeah, floating around, swimming
through the air, getting in our nostrils.
Yeah. That's the whole topic.
It really is. Let's see, what else do we want
to say about allergies? I I've heard of people
(27:08):
recommending to help with something environmental pollen,
allergies to eat. Local honey, Yeah.
Or bee pollen. Bee pollen, Yes.
Yeah. My I had a coworker who did
that. He used to hit up the farmers
market in his neighborhood, and he would ask one of the vendors
who typically had honey and honeycomb if they had any bee
(27:30):
pollen. And he would buy the bee pollen
from this vendor, and he would add it into his tea and other
things. And he said it totally helped
him. Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah, I, I, that was something that I recall folks at
my how you see Santa Barbara doing, we have a big
environmental studies program there.
(27:51):
And I believe Santa Barbara has a very weird ecosystem that's
very unique compared to the restof California.
And so people who didn't have allergies and other places when
they come there, they'll have allergies or vice versa.
And I recall that when I was a kid, I used to like always have
(28:12):
a stuffy nose and I have allergies and stuff.
And then I went to Santa Barbaraand I never had that issue.
And then I moved back home and never had a stuffy nose like
that. It could also be like, that was
my old house. So maybe it was like my old
house had something going on. Maybe.
Maybe. Again, it's it's kind of a
mystery at the end of the day. A lot of allergists will say
(28:36):
that the individual's immune system is going to determine
like how you respond or react tocertain things.
There's really no indicator thatyou can just kind of use as a
blanket standardization for everyone.
It really depends on you as an individual.
So if you do, like I was saying before, if you have chronic
(28:57):
illness or you have autoimmune issues, then you know you do
have an increased probability ofexperiencing allergic symptoms
just because your immune system is already sort of on high
alert. And it's also confused and
attacking things that it's not supposed to.
And so while it's attacking things that it's not supposed
(29:19):
to, it's probably not paying attention to the allergens that
are coming in. So it, you know, it's just
something that you kind of have to be aware of and you have to
delicately balance all these different things.
And I don't know, the allergist that I saw was she was as
helpful as she could be, but at the end of the day, she was
like, I don't know why you're having these symptoms.
(29:41):
Like, I don't know, I just thinkyour immune system is going
crazy. And I was like, bitch, don't I
know it. So fun times, fun adventures in
allergy land. I'm grateful every day though
that like I don't. I didn't even say this.
I'm not allergic to coconut anymore.
(30:02):
Oh yeah, you mentioned you had your a first meal.
Yeah, after your appointment. And what was it?
It was Thai Curry, bitch. It was Thai Curry, dude.
OK, let me tell. I love Curry.
I love Curry of all types. I do not discriminate.
I'm a Curry girl through and through and I've never been able
to have Thai Curry because it's made with coconut milk.
(30:22):
Have I made you Vietnamese Curryor Vicky's?
No, because of the coconut. Milk.
Vicky always wanted to make Curry for me, or she would send
me recipes and I'd be like, girl, I can't, I can't.
No, you can. I know.
And so that was an amazing turn out from this most recent
allergy test. And again, I don't know what
happened because I've been allergic to coconut as long as I
(30:44):
can remember and I had that whole thing happened.
This is probably that incident with the soap and whatever that
was probably in like 20/16/2017.It wasn't that long ago, but it
was seven years ago. So I don't know if there's any
truth to that seven-year myth orseven-year theory, but yeah, I,
(31:08):
I got the test back and I, I looked and it said no reaction
to coconut. And I was like, is this real?
And she's like, this is real, dude, we just did it.
Like, are you kidding? I have a picture of my back too,
that I can share. And it, it, there's nothing
like, it just looks like a bunchof little marker dots on my back
like nothing happened. So yeah, I got some Thai Curry
(31:30):
and I loved it. And now I put coconut milk in
fucking everything. I make a lot of recipes when
Danny comes over and I use coconut milk all the fucking
time. It's so easy and so many recipes
you know, like another thing that you might want to consider
if you are having an overactive immune system or whatever is
like doing an elimination diet. Was it expensive to get the
(31:53):
allergy test done? Yes, which is probably which is
why the reason I say that is whythat's why I think doing an
elimination diet could also be helpful if you can't send an
allergy test right away. Yeah, there are different types.
I went for the full throttle. They they do the whole thing.
They cover your entire back in samples, little pricks to all
(32:18):
these different things. And they, you know, I had to go
in two different weeks. So one week they do the food
version and then the following week they do the environmental.
So you can't do them at the sametime.
And yeah, it was real expensive.And I actually, it took me until
probably, I don't know, maybe December or January of this year
(32:43):
before I actually paid it off 'cause I was paying it off in
monthly increments, 'cause it was a, it was a big old bill.
So, I mean, I don't know what your version of big is, but for
me it was like 620 something dollars.
And I was just like, are you serious?
All for them to tell me that there's nothing going on.
(33:04):
Look. At that, you can't eat coconut
but I. Can't eat coconut.
But yeah, I spent all that moneyfor them to tell me that I don't
have even though I'm still having all these.
It was whatever. It's fine.
It is what it is. And that's also with insurance,
just FYI, So something to keep in mind.
It was expensive. The elimination diet's a good
(33:25):
way to go there. There's really no cure for
allergies. If you grow out of them, you get
lucky. Great.
I wish that for everybody. But there's no, there's no
proven process or something where I could tell you if you
want to grow out of this allergyto coconut, just do this.
There's none of that. You just your body is going to
(33:47):
do what it wants. And if you're lucky enough to
grow out of those allergies, amazing.
If you're not, though, there's no cure for allergies, and so
you need to reduce your exposureto your allergen because
allergies are really bad for your immune system.
(34:09):
And like, we know they can lead to death.
So you do have to take them seriously.
It's not just like a little man,I'm so tired of sneezing or, you
know, it's so unfortunate that Ican't be around this dog or that
I can't have oranges or apples like Sabrina Carpenter or
whatever. You really do have to stay away
(34:29):
from those things. Yeah.
So that you can give your body achance to operate at its at its
highest function. And if you have friends with
allergies don't be like trying to micro dose them if they don't
know. So Charlie my fiance is allergic
to alcohol. He'll actually get hives,
especially from dark liquor. And he I sometimes will have
(34:52):
moments of peer pressure like I didn't want, I wanted to ensure
that I could. I'm like, but now you're
uncomfortable. Now you're hiding in a bathroom
and just scratching your belly. So don't be pushing people.
It's it's, it's, you never know how dangerous it is, especially
if it's like something like alcohol or once everybody gets
belligerent, you don't know whatto do if situations were to
(35:15):
turn. Really bad.
Totally. Yeah.
It's important to respect the boundaries that someone else has
to put on themselves if they do have an allergy, if they are
experiencing something. You never know.
It's always better to err on theside of caution, we say, as
people who have experienced veryrisky things in the past.
(35:39):
Yeah, I know that like some people culturally like don't
take allergies really seriously.I know that gluten allergy,
there's other people that are have gluten allergies have
celiac diseases and not everybody is really good at like
being aware of those things. Forthcoming.
I have a story. So at one of the companies I was
(36:01):
at previously I had a Co worker who had a Duten allergy and we
had we get meal. We got catered lunches every
once in a while and she was already finishing her meal when
she gets a message over e-mail that the meal that she thought
was gluten free in fact was not gluten free.
(36:24):
They apologize for the inconvenience to what she was
having a freak out. I'm like, Oh no.
That's so bad. Oh no.
And so she was like, I'd let us all know if like, hey, if
something were to be weird, if like I stopped breathing or
something like that. Have EpiPen, like this is how
you administer it. And I remember being there like
(36:47):
kind of feeling really tense. Like now that I know this
information, I feel very tense. It's stressed out.
We did actually have to administer it and I actually had
to take go to it with her to thehospital.
I don't think we did. When it was administered, it was
a full amount because I think ifI recall correctly, another Co
(37:10):
worker administered it and she'slike OK, that's good.
And then she goes wait, was that10 seconds?
And I was like, that was not tenseconds.
And then we went to the hospital.
We became really good friends after that.
It was nice. Yeah.
So, yeah, gluten is one that people do not take seriously.
Yeah, often they feel like it's this crunchy granola California
(37:31):
thing that we just don't want toeat gluten without realizing
that there's an actual medical reason that people are not
consuming it. So let's just put that whole
thing to bed. It's pretty serious if you have
a gluten allergy. Like, come on, people.
Pens are expensive. They.
Are epipens are like 400 bucks? It's so.
(37:51):
Expensive. Yeah, I have one that I probably
don't need any more. You should.
Let me know where it is it. Expires too.
Yeah, I'm sure that should. I don't know.
I got it last year. We'll have to look at it.
It's like right in there. Anyway, All right, I think we've
covered pretty good amount of stuff today.
A good amount of stuff, a lot ofstuff.
Yeah, that story's wild that I'mnot over that.
(38:15):
Wait, I think there are a coupleother questions I had.
I know that we were talking about pets and stuff earlier.
Are there in fact hypoallergenicbreeds of animals?
Is that it fit? Oh, your face tells me no.
(38:35):
There there are no true hypoallergenic dogs, or cats at
least, which are typically the ones that people are asking
about. Dander in cats and dogs is not
influenced by their length of fur or hair or how much they
shed. That's not like if you get a
(38:59):
hairless cat. It still has like.
It still has dander and yeah, like secretions, just natural
oils and things like that. That it, yeah, you could still
be allergic to that. So I know there's a, you know,
sometimes breeders will claim like, oh, this is a
hypoallergenic animal. You can take it home.
(39:24):
Technically, no, not recommended.
Like if you're allergic to dogs,you're just allergic to dogs.
So maybe just don't try to get ahypoallergenic dog and just
don't have a dog. If you're allergic to cats,
you're allergic to cats. So yeah, that is considered a
myth. The hypoallergenic pet.
(39:46):
Interesting to know. Yeah, that's very in right now.
It really is. There's so many breeds that's
like specifically a lot of people are getting for that
reason. You know who you are, you know
what they are. Yeah, there's another myth kind
of related to that where for some reason people think if you
(40:09):
have a short haired animal, thenyou're not going to be allergic
to it. And like I just talked about how
that's not true, but people believe that because the allergy
comes from the dead skin cell. So yeah, I like you could be
allergic to me for all I know. Oh.
That reminds me of the story. Oh, my God.
(40:30):
I recall in middle school, it was middle school or high school
where like there was this couplethat they were like new, a new
couple. And I believe, I don't know if
this is true, but I remember hearing a story of like, yeah,
he would like graze his arm on her arm and then she'd get itchy
afterwards. And I was like, I was like,
(40:53):
they're allergic to each other. She's like, I don't know that's
true if you can be allergic to other humans.
Well, you can be allergic to semen.
Did you know that? Yes, I did.
Yeah. And latex.
Yes. Latex.
Yeah. Yeah.
And unfortunately, there's only a couple of ways you can find
(41:13):
out about those. I mean, the latex is a little
bit easier, but semen, I mean, you're really only finding out
one way. Yeah, it's.
Going to be a rough. Yes, but that is a possibility.
You can be allergic to that. I don't know if it's the
proteins that are in it or what,but that is a thing, yeah.
(41:38):
I'm more sorry I have to ask forif it's OK to share it, but I
won't say their names. I had a a friend who kept
getting Utis and wasn't sure understanding why like they were
they're having this issue and soshe wants to use student health
and while she has student health, the doctor is like, oh,
(42:02):
I think you're allergic to latexand they were having discussion.
She leaves student health to find our housemate.
Hey, I got a bunch of free catnip.
Just turn it off. Which are all, in fact, latex.
But there are goat skin condoms for those that are allergic to
(42:24):
latex. Yeah, it's an option.
They're just going back to like medieval times when they were
using pigs intestines and yeah, yeah.
At least now we have more than like you can dispose of them.
You didn't have to like re wash them.
And reuse them. I didn't want to think about
that. I don't want to think about that
part. Oh, Zerbel.
Oh, no. Oh no.
(42:46):
Don't we live in great times where we don't have to rewash
sheepskin condoms? Yes, wow, I feel so privileged
in this moment. Can you imagine traveling back
in time and having to deal with that shit?
Oh, oh, oh, oh, you know, peoplewill go to great lengths.
(43:07):
I will tell you that. Contraception.
Yeah. Yes.
Wow. If only my grandfather had done
the same. And that'll.
That's a plug for my new pocket.I'm just kidding.
I don't have a name for you. All right.
(43:30):
I think. Do you have any other questions
about allergies? I think that's it, and I had
some great stories. I'm glad that I was able to
share and contribute to this conversation.
Yeah, I love that. I think that's great.
I'm trying to run through my brain and see if there's
anything else I want to share about allergies.
Right. I think we've covered most
things. Yeah.
At the end of the day, your body's mystery and.
(43:51):
And it transforms apparently every seven years.
Yeah, and you're, I'm going to know better than anyone else how
you're going to react to things,so just keep that in mind.
Set your boundaries. Reduce your exposure to things
that you're allergic to. And if you're not allergic to
stuff, support other people thatare.
Yes, Don't give them a hard time.
(44:13):
They can't control it. They really can't.
We did it, yeah. We did another episode.
Oh yeah, celebrity segment. Oh, that's right.
OK, so my celebrity segment. So this is a person who has
pretty extensive allergies. They have a lot of allergies and
they regularly carry an EpiPen with them like in their bag on a
(44:36):
daily basis. This is just something they
always have with them because they have so many food
allergies. So probably very similar to your
Co worker. This person is an actress.
So they are most known for theirrole in a show that ended in
2018. Yes.
Anyway, it's a Shonda Rhimes show and this person was the
(45:01):
star of that show and they have a ton of allergies.
I think that's enough of it. If you know who this person is,
go ahead and comment, send us a message, let us know that you're
listening all the way to the endof an episode because I'll feel
so proud. And then we'll reveal who it is
at the top of episode 8. Yep.
(45:21):
OK. Yeah, we had a good time.
I like talking about my mysterious allergy, not allergy
situation. Hopefully this was helpful in
some way. It's.
Also nice to go down memory laneand all of like.
Yeah, totally. Our bodies are miraculous.
I've said that probably 6 times.I should have a tally for that
too. Our bodies, like our mind also
(45:43):
transforms as we get older. Yes, it's crazy.
Anyway, thanks for being here. We hope you had a good time.
We're looking forward to seeing you in episode 8.
Until then, stay out of pain. Yeah, you.
Did it? That was a good one.
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