Hello!
A few months ago, I had a severe anaphylactic reaction after running, and it was my first fun in a month or two. My symptoms included severe eye swelling (angioedema?), breathing became labored, nasal passages became blocked. I've been trying to figure out exactly what cause the reaction since. I went to an allergist who simply said the reaction was idiopathic. Possible causes included wheat, chickpeas, ibuprofen. I tested negative to basic skin prick tests with wheat and chickpeas. I regularly run while taking ibuprofen, so I don't think that's the cause. I do now have to carry around an epipen and a dose or two of benadryl and prednisone.
I didn't like the idea of waiting until my next allergic reaction to find out more about my potential allergy, so I went to a different doctor who recommended a bunch of tests. Everything looked fine except my immune system was still all riled up, months later, and I still had extremely high levels of inflammation in my body. My doc said my immune system was hypersensitive and I need to reduce its sensitivity. The initial testing doesn't look like I have any type of autoimmune disease. I have basic symptoms of fatigue, unnaturally reactive skin, weight gain, but all of that could be attributed to other things. I got an E95 basic food panel, and I'm "allergic" to all types of dairy, gluten, and wheat (results over 2300 for all). I know this means I have significantly high levels of IgG antibodies in my system, but I've heard there are a lot of false positive tests. Because my immune system is involved, my doc believe it to be a non-IgE allergy and not a food intolerance. She says I have trouble digesting larger protein molecules. I've been eating these foods my entire life, so I haven't noticed any symptom changes.
My doc recommended I remove gluten from my diet and limit dairy. I don't have too much of a problem with this, but I'm looking to understand exactly what's wrong, both in terms of my anaphylactic reaction and the overactive immune system/sensitivity. I'm trying to understand whether this is more of an allergy problem, an autoimmune problem, or what the heck is going on. So many words have been thrown around recently by multiple doctors... allergies, intolerances, hypersensitivities, autoimmune problems, etc... Any ideas as to what's going on? I probably left something out, so please ask for details.