Allergies are a complex illness, varying in severity with a genetic component as well as environmental factors – and sadly there is no cure.
For allergy sufferers, they learn to live around their triggers and avoid anything that could result in the extreme response that is anaphylaxis, which could result in death.
Even more worrying, children of allergy sufferers can develop reactions too - often to different allergens, making life hard to navigate.
Rebecca Kyriacou told The Mirror how her daughter is allergic to milk protein, but the mum-of-one is scared she might develop more allergies as she ages, just like Rebecca herself did.
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"It wasn't until my late teens that I developed food allergies that I wasn't allergic to as a child," said the 27-year-old.
"You don't think that you're just going to suddenly become allergic to something. I've been allergic to penicillin since I was a small child, but food allergy wise, [that came later].
"It started with nuts and things like that, where I'd come up in like full body hives or my throat would be itchy and sometimes my eyes would swell."
These reactions were nothing compared to her first ever anaphylactic shock which happened almost a year ago, resulting in Rebecca needing an ambulance and being prescribed an auto-injector.
Auto-injectors, sometimes known by brand name EpiPens, are used when someone goes into anaphylaxis and contain adrenaline or epinephrine to counteract the symptoms of an allergic reaction.
Having her first anaphylaxis in her late 20s changed how the mum felt about her allergies, she said: "It was a big shock and it made me more scared of my allergies."
Rebecca recalled: "My whole body came out in hives. [Paramedics] gave me a steroid nebulizer because it was affecting my breathing.
"When they were listening to my chest before they took me to hospital they said that even after the nebulizer, my lungs still sounded wheezy."
Despite the very real threat to her own life, it was her daughter who Rebecca thought of as she also has allergies, specifically to cow's milk protein.
The beauty therapist from London added: "Especially now I'm a mum and I have a two year old. Whenever you have any kind of reaction, you're always worried 'what if this is a life threatening reaction'.
"Obviously, having to call an ambulance and go to hospital it's scary."
While her two-year-old does not have an IgE reaction, meaning it's non-anaphylactic, Rebecca is still wary she has seen her own allergies develop and expand over the years.
The mum said: "She had allergy testing just after her first birthday because there were multiple allergens that we were worried about. She has has a cow's milk protein allergy since she was basically new born.
"I stopped having dairy myself when she was around seven weeks old because she was reacting through my breast milk. I didn't even know that babies could react through the mother's milk at that time."
Since joining an online allergy support group, run by allergy specialist Dr Helen Howells, Rebecca has a greater understanding of how to navigate both her and her two-year-old's diet. She also tries to feed her varied meals so her body does not develop other allergic responses.
She added: "When I'm feeding my daughter, I tend not to feed her things that if she's going to touch me I'll react to like I wouldn't give her peanut butter and toast. My husband can feed it to her when I'm not here but I have to think about those sorts of things.
"Not even just pertaining to myself but also when I'm feeding my daughter I have to take both of our allergies into consideration"
Rebecca is particularly concerned about other parents misunderstanding the difference between intolerance and allergies, especially when it comes to her two-year-old's milk allergy.
"With my daughter, everyone was constantly saying, 'oh, can she have this can she have that?' No because it has milk protein in it," the 27-year-old explained.
"Even if it's lactose free, lactose is just a sugar. So for people buying treats at Easter, they don't take the time to check and see if it has the allergen in it.
"I feel like people take nut allergies a lot more seriously than some of the other big allergens like sesame and milk. They can be equally as terrible if someone has a reaction to them."
She points out that her daughter's nursery is a nut free zone, which is great, but you don't get "fish free zones" for airborne fish allergies which can be just as bad should someone react.
Rebecca shared: "I often worry about [people who've eaten allergens touching] soft things around my daughter, especially before I knew that she wasn't IgE. I worried about people letting their children eat things with milk and then playing with the stuff and then her touching it and getting unwell."
She added: "People could just be a little bit more conscientious. Like don't get on the bus and sit and eat a pack of peanuts.
"I'm not saying don't eat peanuts anywhere apart from your house or anything like that, just in an enclosed space where you don't really know the people you're sitting right next to. You could harm someone."
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