Two years ago, a home-cooked dinner at her partner’s house ended with Arabella Scanlon in hospital, thanks to some mislabelled tahini.
The ingredients list on the sesame seed condiment had failed to declare the tahini had been manufactured overseas with equipment that also dealt with peanuts and cashews.
First came an itchy and tight throat, which Ms Scanlon told herself was a flare-up of her asthma, feeling confused because the food shouldn’t have forced a reaction, and guilty since she’d already had an allergic reaction at her partner’s house a couple of months prior.
But when she began vomiting, it became clear her body was reacting to something in the food, even though it had been prepared with her allergies to nuts and shellfish in mind.
With difficulty breathing, nausea, swollen lips and hives all over her body, Ms Scanlon was forced to spend a “scary” night in hospital and take steroid medication for the following week – which came with its own list of unpleasant side effects.
“It feels really, really silly now, because if I did have the adrenaline immediately my reaction probably wouldn’t have persisted for so long and been as severe,” she said.
“Since that [reaction], I’ve really told myself that if I do have another reaction, I’m not going to hesitate to have my adrenaline because that’s the only thing that’s really going to make me survive and there’s no reason to hesitate if I do have symptoms of anaphylaxis.”
During Food Allergy Week, which started on Sunday, Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia is similarly urging Australians living with food allergies and asthma to use their adrenaline injector first and asthma reliever puffer second.
Global food allergy capital
Australia is the food allergy capital of the world, and more than 50 per cent of people with food allergies also have asthma.
Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia CEO Maria Said said if people with these diagnoses should always turn to their adrenaline injector first if they start having sudden breathing difficulties, especially after eating.
“[Adrenaline is] not going to do you any harm if you didn’t need it,” she said.
“Use adrenaline first, and then use your asthma reliever puffer and follow the instructions on your [Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy] Action Plan for Anaphylaxis, which is your emergency response plan.”
Ms Said said while food allergies were rare in the 1990s, there’s been a real increase in prevalence since the early 2000s.
There’s no clear answer yet for the increase, but some prominent theories attribute the change to Australians eating more processed foods, and being frightened of introducing common allergy-causing foods to their babies.
One in 10 Australian babies aged 12 months and under have food allergies – the highest rate in the world.
In particular, children of migrants from south east Asia are more likely to develop food allergies; again, the reason why is unclear, but Ms Said said it could be down to a difference in preparing food like peanuts, and processed foods being a bigger part of the Australian diet.
But while parents might be holding off on giving their child products like nut butters until they’re older, Ms Said said children given common allergy-causing foods when they’re ready as a baby (once they’re about six months old, but not before they’re four months old) are less likely to develop allergies to the products.
“It’s important that we give these babies the common foods that the family eats, including milk … smooth peanut butter, or smooth other tree nut butters, fish,” she said.
“[If] we give our babies these foods before they turn one, there’s a window of opportunity for the immune system to accept them as healthy, normal foods rather than see them as harmful.”
Lack of support for allergies
Although children are likely to outgrow outgrow milk, egg and wheat allergies, other allergies to products like tree nuts, sesame and shellfish are more likely to be lifelong.
Ms Said said waiting lists to see allergy specialists are long, and GPs are grappling to support people with allergies because the topic usually isn’t a big part of their training.
This lack of knowledge is something 22-year-old Ms Scanlon and her parents are familiar with; when she started showing signs of allergic reactions like hives and eczema as a baby, local doctors in Daylesford told her parents they were overreacting.
She was only diagnosed with allergies to nuts, shellfish, seeds, dairy and egg products after several trips to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.
Ms Scanlon has since grown out of many of these allergies, but only after her parents uprooted from Daylesford to Melbourne when she was a child to make sure she had access to the best care.
The possibility of having an allergic reaction has left Ms Scanlon feeling isolated and scared of eating at times, but she said Australia has come a long way since she was a child, and manufacturing standards and food service standards help her feel safe.
