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.
------------------------------
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.
------------------------------------
07.23.2011 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.
------------------------------------------------------
CMdeux
07.25.2011 at 02:07:11, rebekahc2 wrote:
07.25.2011 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
------------------------------------------
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.