I didn't see this thread initially. DS' first ana reaction was at a restaurant in San Antonio on the riverwalk. He was three I think. And after taking a bite of DS dish said, "It feels like the front of my throat is touching the back."

Sounds like your symptoms SL. 

spacecanada

Posted: 07.25.2011 at 10:00:44
My husband asked me the same question about throat closing and anxiety at the weekend, so thanks for the great clarification, Silver Lining!

Ana reactions do not go away with sitting calmly and breathing deep and slow. It becomes more and more difficult to breathe and swallow. Eventually it will take great effort to get any air in. Asthma rescue inhalers won't work. That's how my first few (pre-dx) ana reactions went, plus some circulatory and neurological issues.

It could feel or happen differently to everyone. I never felt like I had anything stuck in my throat, but others have explained it that way. It could even vary from reaction to reaction.

Hopefully it was just anxiety, but as lakeswimr said, there is a high chance there could have been cross contamination involved. People who don't live with allergies don't always understand how easy it is for cross contamination to happen.

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QuoteAna reactions do not go away with sitting calmly and breathing deep and slow. It becomes more and more difficult to breathe and swallow. Eventually it will take great effort to get any air in. Asthma rescue inhalers won't work. That's how my first few (pre-dx) ana reactions went, plus some circulatory and neurological issues.

I disagree - often times anaphylaxis is self-resolving. That's how so many people get lucky and don't die even when they mis-manage a reaction. The reason we use epi is because there is no way to know if the anaphylaxis will self-resolve.



For the OP, I would consider hives and throat tighness both symptoms of a contact or airborn reaction. I know that some here are convinced that any contact or airborn reaction must include a hidden source of injestion (or other direct contact with mucous membranes), but I am not one of them. I have also experienced that if I eat or drink anything when I'm around someone consuming peanuts my throat will react. I assume it's from the airborne molecules being brought into my mouth/throat with my food. <shrug>

So, regardless if your throat symptom was anxiety or reaction - the lump sounds like reaction to me, but I've never experienced an anxiety attack - the best thing for you to do is treat as if it was a reaction.

When I can, I avoid being near anyone eating peanuts/nuts and never eat or drink when around it. When I have symptoms of a contact or airborn reaction, I leave the area immediately. I wash my hands and any area of my body with hives or itchiness. Generally, that will stop any progression of symptoms. If I don't leave soon enough, my symptoms do progress - hives on all exposed skin, eyes red/swelling, sneezing/itchy nose, throat tightness/lump/itching, chest tightness/wheezing/asthma. Those symptoms will go away quickly without treatment after I leave the area. So for me, if I know I haven't ingested anything, I'll leave/wash and see if the symptoms subside. If there's any chance I'm reacting because I ate something, then I treat immediately. If the symptoms didn't subside quickly when I left the area, I would also treat.
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Quote07.23.2011 at 11:32:25, Snifflesandsneezes wrote:

So, my question is.. how do I know for sure? I mean before it gets to the obvious state of gasping for air? I don't want to make myself paranoid but, I do want to know what I should be watching for with it.

Ra3chel
The messy truth of this one is that you really can't know for sure without treating either the reaction or the anxiety--which is part of why it's so important to have/get anxiety under control.

That said: it is pretty much ALWAYS better to follow an emergency plan and turn out not to have needed to than the reverse. Bear in mind that the point of the epi-ER rigmarole isn't just to respond to life-threatening reactions, but to get medical treatment BEFORE reactions progress to the point of becoming life-threatening.

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CMdeux

Quote07.25.2011 at 02:07:11, rebekahc2 wrote:

Quote07.25.2011 at 10:00:44, spacecanada wrote:

Ana reactions do not go away with sitting calmly and breathing deep and slow. It becomes more and more difficult to breathe and swallow. Eventually it will take great effort to get any air in. Asthma rescue inhalers won't work. That's how my first few (pre-dx) ana reactions went, plus some circulatory and neurological issues.

I disagree - often times anaphylaxis is self-resolving. That's how so many people get lucky and don't die even when they mis-manage a reaction. The reason we use epi is because there is no way to know if the anaphylaxis will self-resolve.

For the OP, I would consider hives and throat tighness both symptoms of a contact or airborn reaction. I know that some here are convinced that any contact or airborn reaction must include a hidden source of injestion (or other direct contact with mucous membranes), but I am not one of them. I have also experienced that if I eat or drink anything when I'm around someone consuming peanuts my throat will react. I assume it's from the airborne molecules being brought into my mouth/throat with my food. <shrug>

So, regardless if your throat symptom was anxiety or reaction - the lump sounds like reaction to me, but I've never experienced an anxiety attack - the best thing for you to do is treat as if it was a reaction.

When I can, I avoid being near anyone eating peanuts/nuts and never eat or drink when around it. When I have symptoms of a contact or airborn reaction, I leave the area immediately. I wash my hands and any area of my body with hives or itchiness. Generally, that will stop any progression of symptoms. If I don't leave soon enough, my symptoms do progress - hives on all exposed skin, eyes red/swelling, sneezing/itchy nose, throat tightness/lump/itching, chest tightness/wheezing/asthma. Those symptoms will go away quickly without treatment after I leave the area. So for me, if I know I haven't ingested anything, I'll leave/wash and see if the symptoms subside. If there's any chance I'm reacting because I ate something, then I treat immediately. If the symptoms didn't subside quickly when I left the area, I would also treat.

Pretty much exactly what I'd have said.

The explanation of management strategy for this type of (suspected) exposure is precisely how we manage DD's (relatively frequent) symptoms from aerosolized allergens.

Oh-- and Ra3chel is precisely correct. OVER-treatment almost always is better than UNDER-treatment the one time that you couldn't afford to make that error
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LL70
Posted: 07.26.2011 at 09:15:44
This could be an airborne reaction. I have this with cashews. If there is an open jar of them or people eating them around me my throat instantly tightens up without warning. No hives, itching swelling. This happened to me one day at work. I took Benadryl, but I had trouble talking and had a froggy voice shortly after when the tightening stopped. We found out later that people were eating cashews. I used to be o.k. being in the room with them not anymore. Same thing with shellfish. If there is too much around me my eyes start pinching and after a while my throat starts to tighten.

I also have had throat reactions (feeling like I'm choking on sand and throat tightening spasms) from drinking a glass of water a couple of times. After that there is only 3 other places where I eat and feel free to police or take over the kitchen (my mom's and my MIL's) and I wash or rinse everything because a "clean" glass can be contaminated. I also learned that the pretzels or grapes that are being served in the same house as peanuts will become contaminated.
If someone eats crab and talks to me I will get hives on my face.

You are not paranoid. If you weren't feeling anything you wouldn't be wondering about this. These are true symptoms. It sounds like a reaction since you had hives on your stomach. It could be from something that you may have eaten that was contaminated or airborne.

In the beginning when I felt throat symptoms I would wonder "did I just feel my throat tighten up" or "my throat feels funny" "I feel like I'm choking" I would drink something but it wouldn't go away. There are also different types of throat reactions. Sometimes I feel painful lumps, with shellfish I feel like I'm choking on broken glass. Peanuts feels like I'm choking on sand. Cashews, there is no pain just tightening up (no talking, breathing and then it stops and starts again). No one else can tell I'm having a reaction which is scary. So far I've been o.k. with walking away from an area and taking Benadryl. I always worry that one day I'll need to use my Epi-Pen for airborne reactions. But I have it with me in case I do.

Question about throat tightening

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Snifflesandsneezes
Posted: 07.23.2011 at 11:32:25    
I have a question about feeling your throat tighten up. When I started reacting to pistachio my eyes were swelling and I'd get hives. Since my diagnosis 9 or 10 years ago I haven't eaten any of them. A few times I'd had someone eat some and give me a kiss on the cheek and I'd get hives where they'd kissed me.

Last night my Dad ate a piece of cake that had crushed pistachio's on it. We were sitting at the same table together. As he ate it I noticed my stomach was itching. I looked and sure enough I had a little hive and 3 little ones popping up around it. They were really pretty small so, I pretty much dismissed them. They didn't last for days like the last hives I got about a month ago.

I got up and went into the kitchen. I was getting myself something to drink and I became aware that I could feel the back of my throat. If that makes sense. I couldn't tell if it was really my throat swelling or if I was imagining things. It kind of felt like I either had a something caught in my throat or like I had a lump in my throat. Now I don't want to blow anything out of proportion. It very well, could have been my imagination. But, that's just it. I couldn't tell if that's what I was feeling or if I was just being hyper sensitive.

I dismissed it too. I tried to not think about it and stay calm. And after a little while I wasn't feeling my throat anymore. I've had an ana reaction to meds before. But, I was on the operating table so, I don't remember anything about what it felt like when it started.

So, my question is.. how do I know for sure? I mean before it gets to the obvious state of gasping for air? I don't want to make myself paranoid but, I do want to know what I should be watching for with it.
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SilverLining
Posted: 07.24.2011 at 08:05:58    


This might help:


Plain English Anaphylaxis Grading Chart
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SilverLining
Posted: 07.24.2011 at 08:13:23    
This is just my own experience, and not intended as advice.....

After going through anaphylaxis I was extremely paranoid. I found I was often having what appeared to be reactions with tightening of the throat or chest. In my case, it was anxiety. Eventually I was able to tell the difference. When it was anxiety, sitting calmly and breathing deeply would alleviate the symptoms.

While an allergic reaction will sometimes go away without treatment, it would not go away as quickly as mine were...they were anxiety.

At the time, I was having real reactions daily....but usually just hives....so using an epi every time was not reasonable.
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lakeswimr

Posted: 07.24.2011 at 09:19:15    
I do not know if it was psychological or real throat tightening as I am not you and wasn't there. However, the facts are that you were sitting with someone who was eating an allergen and you got hives and itchiness on your stomach and is very likely not a coincidence. It makes me wonder if your father and others were being careful enough about cross contamination of surfaces, etc. If whoever cut the piece of cake your father ate didn't immediately wash hands afterward then whatever that person touched got tiny amounts of allergen on it. If I were to cut a piece of that cake and eat it near DS (and truthfully I wouldn't dare. I do have cheese around him sometimes but not nuts--too scary and I'm too messy to do it right) I would wash my hands a lot. First I would put the cake in the middle of a counter or table where it couldn't touch anything else. I would have the plate I was going to put it on and the knife and fork for the person to eat it with already out ahead of time so I didn't touch some of the cake and then get frosting on me and then get some on my clean stack of dishes or in the silverware draw. KWIM? And then I would cut the piece, put it on the plate and move the plate to the other table where the person is going to eat it watching what I touch. I would also have the dishwasher already opened and draw pulled out where I was going to put the knife. I would have a paper towel ready and prewash the knife with the paper towel. I would put the knife right into the dishwasher. I would wash my hands being careful not to touch the faucet with my hands but push it up with my arm. I would then put the cake away and wash my hands AGAIN! And then I would spray down the counter and wipe with a paper towel which I threw away afterward and then probably wash one more time. The whole time I would be conscious and aware of what I was touching.

One time my son reacted to *a glass of water* at a relatives home where he didn't eat anything and they had put the nuts away before we got there. I think the person who got him his water hadn't washed hands after eating nuts and one of her fingers must have touched the rim of the glass or inside the rim as she got my son a glass of water using a glass out of the dishwasher. Having nuts in the house is a big risk, particularly if you are with people who don't get that touching things is a danger.

I don't know what your family does but I can imagine x-contam can happen VERY easily and I"d recommend asking them to refrain from nuts around you.