Our Allergies; Will They Ever Go Away?

Read Katherine J Wu's 'I Was Allergic to Cats. Until Suddenly, I Wasn't', published in The Atlantic on October 6, 2022. The writer had all the classic allergic reactions to close contact with cats. Nothing threatening, but they were all itchy and swollen and such. After a decade of such allergic flares, they suddenly went away. The writer was all okay with cats again. 

The essay suggested that allergies that subsided were an anomaly. While some allergies remain forever, some anecdotal evidence has shown that allergies do wax and wane, or they appear at any age. It's the immune cells being triggered. There is such a thing as 'tolerance', building it up over the years if the body decides to produce more antibodies to cushion the body's response to allergens.  

How frustratingly little we know about allergies is compounded by the fact that the world is becoming a more allergic place. A lot of the why remains murky, but researchers think that part of the problem can be traced to the perils of modern living: the wider use of antibiotics; the shifts in eating patterns; the squeaky-cleanness of so many contemporary childhoods, focused heavily on time indoors.

I've always had dogs growing up, so I never knew I could be allergic to cats. When I met my first cat up close and personal in my teens, my eyes swelled and teared for a week, and my nose and throat went bonkers. I was allergic to cat dander, but those flares were comparatively mild, considering what eating shellfish can do to me. Oddly, this allergy to cats subsided after a few years.

Many friends are allergic to cats (its dander), and still, they own cats. It's impossible to maintain a 'clean room' in a home with cats. The friends either vacuum and clean house aggressively, or take antihistamines every other day, or simply don't cuddle or kiss their cats. Some have grown to be 'less allergic' to their own cats, but have to battle flares should they come into contact with other cats. 

I know my allergy triggers. It has always been shellfish. This one never faded away or subsided significantly. I grew a little bit more tolerant, but not very much. Shellfish will still result in a windpipe closure and a severe reaction requires an Epipen jab. I can't stock raw prawns at home or wash them in the sink. This amount of exposure can be debilitating. As I get older, I developed allergies towards essential oils, flowers, soil, and various dried herbs used in both Chinese and holistic treatments. Ugh.  

This is probably why we tear our hair out when the results of allergy tests come in, be it for ourselves or for our pets. Often, they're inconclusive or they indicate that the allergies come from everything and anything. 

But if allergies can rise this steeply with the times, maybe they can resolve rapidly too. New antibody-based treatments could help silence the body’s alarm sensors and quell IgE’s rampage. Some researchers are even looking into how fecal transplants that port the gut microbiome of tolerant people into allergy sufferers might help certain food sensitivities subside. Anne Liu, an allergist and immunologist at Stanford, is also hopeful that “the incidence of new food allergies will decline over the next 10 years,” as more advances come through. After years of advising parents against introducing their kids to sometimes-allergenic substances such as milk and peanuts too young, experts are now encouraging early exposures, in the hopes of teaching tolerance. And the more researchers learn about how allergies naturally abate, the better they might be able to safely replicate fade-outs.

I'm less worried about my own allergies. They're not nut allergies, thank goodness. Those are mad fatal. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is something I'm acquainted with. It apparently works for both humans and dogs. Obviously it's something I was exploring during Choya's prolonged bout of inexplicable diarrhea. Thankfully we got through that. So it's in my interest to maintain a healthy gut microbiome for her. Well... for myself too. 

I don't know if my allergies will ever go away. I've lived with these allergies for as long as I can remember. I'll deal with them as they occur. I'm not too fussed. They aren't something that affect my quality of life for the now. An EpiPen and a few trips to the emergency room in this small-enough city ensure that anaphylaxis is addressed swiftly. It's pretty easy to avoid my triggers because I know what they are. It's when there're new and unexplained triggers, then I have to do some tracing back or begin the process of elimination again.