Reaction yesterday morning

[Dewey]

Haven't yet determined what was the source. The only things I had eaten recently were cereal that has always been safe and  a glass of orange juice. About half an hour after eating, my tongue and lips started getting tingly and I noticed a few scattered hives on my chest and stomach. As per our plan, I dosed with Benadryl and continued to monitor. I never had any trouble breathing, no vomiting or GI troubles, and the tingling went away shortly after taking Benadryl, although hives continued to crop up on my back and arms for the next few hours. The hives were gone by early afternoon, although I woke up this morning with more hives on my chest, back, and arms, which have been coming and going all day. No more recurrence of tingling lips/tongue.

Now I'm just trying to figure out the source...the most likely culprit is the cereal, although I've never reacted to it before.

[lakeswimr]

Did you ever contact the company to ask about non-top 8 allergens and about cross contamination risk for all your allergens?  Even though you have eaten this cereal for years you could have gotten a batch that was cross contaminated with your known allergens.  Since you have some non top 8 allergens they can be in foods and not even listed on labels.  I can imagine some cereal companies using strawberry in some flavors.  If you still have the cereal you can send it to the University of Nebraska for testing.  You can call the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network for info on how to do this.  It would be free of charge to you.

[CMdeux]

...  ...

and to add to that, cross-contamination is a very tricky animal; because it is inherently UN-intentional, the amount may vary in pretty much mind-boggling fashion.

It's possible that the reason you've never had a problem before is that you tolerate the level of XC normally present in the item, and you got unlucky in this particular batch and finally got a level that you do NOT tolerate.

I've seen people have this problem with M&M's or bakery products with a peanut allergy.  MOST of the time, it's fine.  That means that they may have been consuming teh product "fine" for years-- in spite of cross-contamination.

[lakeswimr]

Yes, CM.  DS had several products that he ate just fine that didn't have anything about one of his non-top 8 allergens on the label and didn't have any ambiguous wording like 'natural flavor', etc.  He ate them for several years and then had serious reactions to them.  x-contam is not some constant amount of protein in food.  It can vary hugely as you explained. 

[Dewey]

Quick follow-up: We got in touch with the cereal company - turns out they have, in fact, recently started producing a cereal with mixed fruit - including strawberries.  So that's one mystery solved.

[hezzier]

Sorry about the cereal, but it's always good to figure out the cause!

[CMdeux]

Oooo-- bummer about your cereal, but congratulations on figuring out what caused your reaction-- mystery rxns bite.