Sudden Hives after almonds

[Kosm]

Hi there,
I am freaking out. I am 39 years old. I have a mild allergy to cats, and severe allergy to dust, but I never figured that I have food allergies. For 2 years, I have had GI issues with reflux and nausea, and sometimes hives at night. But I never connected it with eating.
I had an endoscopy a few months back with showed some inflammation in the small bowel. Celiac testing was negative. Doc said likely food allergy or sensitivity. I noticed things were worse after eating sugary foods.
Anyways, the last couple of days I have been putting almond oil in my nose to help with nasal dryness. It has been helping a lot. But I noticed I felt tired afterwards. Then, last night I ate an almond nut bar. I have had these bars many times with no issues. 10 minutes later I broke in hives so bad all over my body. The worst ever. Head to toe. My eyes got puffy. I took Benadryl and used steroid cream because the itch was driving me nuts (no pun intended).
I made an apt for food allergy testing in 2 weeks.
The thing is, does the skin test really have reliable results? Should I request a blood test instead?
Now that it has been about 12 hours since my reaction, am I in the clear as far as anaphalaxis?
I am so scared!

[rebekahc]

Hi and welcome!    I'm sorry you needed to find us, though. 

Now that you're at the 12 hour mark, it is unlikely you will experience a resurgence of your reaction.  Sometimes bi-phasic reactions occur (when a second, often more severe, reaction happens several hours after the first), but they are generally within a few hours.  They can (rarely) occur up to 72 hours later, however, so it's important to remain vigilant after a reaction.  Do you have a doctor who could prescribe you an EpiPen to have until your allergist appointment?

It definitely sounds like almond could be the culprit and you've done the right thing by scheduling an appointment for testing.  It's important to make sure the doctor who does the testing is a board certified allergist and familiar with treating adults with food allergies, though.

Blood and skin tests are about equal as far as accuracy (around 50% for positive and closer to 90% for negative responses).  Some doctors prefer one over the other.  Due to the high rate of false positives, it's best not to test more things than are necessary.

Here's a link to a chart you can use to tell how severe your reaction is.  Hopefully you won't need it, but it's a good resource until you can see your doctor and get an allergy action plan in place. http://the-clarkes.org/stuff/ana.html