Allergy set off in a garden centre.

[GJGJ33]

Till this day I still do not know what set my severe allergy off at a garden centre. Literally within seconds walking by the indoor plant section, my throat started to itch, ears then all of a sudden I lost my voice and literally fell my airway swell up. I’m allergic to carrots but I just don’t know what caused that terrible reaction in the garden centre... has anyone has a similar attack?

[MoyB]

I can't say I've had the same reaction in a garden centre, but I have woken twice in the past week with a really tight chest and had to use 4 puffs of Ventolin right away to enable me to breathe properly again.

This always happens to me in February and I put it down to the tree pollens (catkins in particular) that start to burst out then, even though the nearest ones are a good half mile away.

Is it possible that, although you were in the house plant section, you may have been near to some trees with pollen?

I am going to the garden centre this afternoon. If get a reaction there, I'll let you know. Perhaps between us we may track down the culprit.

Xx Moy

[GJGJ33 in reply to MoyB]

Thanks for the reply. I think it may have been the mold, some plants contain white mold, can be due to incorrect air circulation or over watered plants, not sure but it was a warm day and im guessing it was the high humidity that probably set me off within seconds of walking past. I would love to know the culprit😊...I didn’t know you can use your ventolin 4 times in one go... I think that’s what I will do too ... you can see I’m an amateur☺️

[MoyB in reply to GJGJ33]

Yes, I understand mould can get us too!

Re the Ventolin, I meant 4 puffs one after the other. I wouldn't normally do this, but my chest was so tight and noisy when I breathed in and out that I quickly did another two puffs after the first two. It brought things back a bit more to normal but still needed to do a couple of puffs a few hours later.

It was a RESP nurse who told me it was ok to do it. I can't remember the maximum number of puffs in a day - it may say on the info leaflet - but as long as you don't exceed that, you should be ok. I think if your breathing is really bad, then it's ok to do whatever you need to do to help but if the inhaler's not enough then you need medical advice or even 999 if you're really struggling.

I'll come back to you after I' ve been to the garden centre and let you know how I got on!

xx Moy

[GJGJ33 in reply to MoyB]

🤗I understand...

[hilary39]

Are you allergic to pollen? Animals? Some nurseries have cats and dogs.

I ate at a restaurant two years ago and had a terrible allergic reaction for days afterward and the next time I walked by I saw a cat in the window and realized that's what had caused the attack.

So hard to figure out our invisible allergens!

[GJGJ33 in reply to hilary39]

No im not. I have a dog and i have had my dogs hair tested on my skin at an allergy private clinic but showed no reaction. So, I dont think its animal dander.Thanks for the replyx

[hilary39 in reply to GJGJ33]

It must be some plant you’re not normally exposed to or some chemical they were using. Must have been unnerving! Our sensitive bodies…

[Mijmijkey74 in reply to GJGJ33]

Could have been that they previously grew vegetables where you were and becausef the humidity it stirred up the allergens/spores in that heavy air. I have a terrible time with tomato plants. I'm a eosinophilic asthmatic but my asthma also referred to by various other doctors as brittle asthma, severe asthma and by some as copd even though I definitely do not have copd. I find those who refer to my asthma as copd highly annoying and always correct them. LolI became critically ill in December 2017 and ended up having a massive asthma attack at home "alone" in Jan 2018 managed to call an ambulance and once at hospital they couldn't get my asthma under control and my pulse was sky high so they placed me into an induced coma that they didn't expect me to survive. I did obviously survive it "not typing this out as a ghost 👻 😂" but 3 days into my coma they preformed a chest/heart scan and there they discovered a completely unexpected find. I had biventricular heart failure. Was told after having been woken from my coma and finally out of ICU that my life expectancy now shortened and that my massive asthma attack saved my life as my body was slowly shutting down, cardiologist said I would at home just gone to sleep one night/day and not woken up again having died in my sleep. I was so very very poorly at home before my hospital admission and various tests/x-rays had been preformed but found nothing. They weren't looking well enough as cardiologist could see instantly how critically poorly I had been even at home and told me that upon my admission to hospital they thought I was about to have a massive heart attack or was having one until they realised it asthma because I was conscious, but he told me after my coma that my heart had stopped beating briefly due to over inflated lung shocking it, and upon exhale it had thankfully shocked it/rebooted it into beating again. He drew me an amazing little diagram of what happened, wish I'd though to ask to keep it, but was still so very poorly at the time. I had to relearn to walk, read, think straight, tell time. Thankfully relearn fast, but 4 years later still not fully recovered, my asthma symptoms similar to your own. Am under the care of respiratory and the severe asthma team at Wythenshawe hospital in the middle of April I will be having my first injection of Fasenra (benralizumab) I'm anxious about it as such a long wait until the middle of April and not really knowing if I am going to have a bad reaction to it. That my letter says I need to stay for 2 hours after injection to be monitored for side effects for my first 3 visits there for the injection doesn't help with that anxiety/concern/worry much either. I am also a cyclist who can cycle several miles without respiratory issues, but pay the price for 2 - 3 days afterwards but not always. I am not a car owner or licence holder yet love driving. Lol. My asthma does not follow the typical asthma "eosinophilic asthma pattern" I have severe childhood into late 20's allergies. Moved abroad to hot country and allergies vanished. Returning to UK always made them return and vanish again when I left. No known childhood asthma, but they suspect now I did have asthma as frequently so poorly. My allergies were horrendous, itching throat, tonsils, throat swelling, itching running nose constantly that I would rub back and forth, wheezing, chest infections, streaming eyes, itching deep inside ears, a clear membrane covering my incredibly itchy swollen weeping eyes after so much constant rubbing of them, eyes would swell so much they would swell shut and seal shut completely crusted over swollen. Constant red eyes, conjunctivitis, stys, incredibly painful lungs that I just needed someone to pat to ease the pain and loosen the mucus. Constant sneezing over 100 in a row, my dad would get angry with me about the sneezing noise, accuse me of making it up, doing it on purpose, my mum would say that's enough of that. It was very very depressing. Spent so much time in bed just wasted unable to function properly, in distress and pain. Frequent chest infections only treated with cough medicine. I should have been in hospital it was so severe in younger childhood, but my parents ignored it and allowed me to suffer. I had no antihistamines, parents never got me any and never took me to the doctors or hospital about it. This went on from 1976 - until I finally was allowed by my parents to see a doctor for myself in the mid 90's aged about 18 or 19. My parents were very controlling. In my mid 20's was finally prescribed super strength antihistamines which went abroad to hot country with me and after having taken only a few in the UK to stop symptoms I did not need them at all abrod in that country, but did need them in France. I lost so much time off school in all my school years because I was simply to ill and exhausted from it all and often couldn't see either to focus. What with nose dripping constantly over my work, the intensity of the itching driving me to distraction, itching nose, throat and ears constantly, eyes with big translucent bubble membrane film over them and streaming, constant exhaustion from 100 plus sneezes one after the other after the other, coughing, wheezing, my chest hurting, dopey from cough medication and lack of sleep due to all the symptoms. Kids would call me druggy because I was so pale, and just full to the brim of the side effects of severe allergies. It didn't help that I lived in the countryside. My dad suffered with hayfever yet because he could manage it "he had asthma relievers and antihistamines" I therefore was making a mountain out of a mole hill and my mum would give me disapproving looks if I sneezed to long,, coughed to long, rubbed at my nose to much or my eyes. She would tear my hands away just not understanding I couldn't stop. There was no relief awake. My nose I ended up breaking because of how itchy it constantly was

My parents didn't take me to hospital even though I told them it was broken. I was left to suffer, alone in my room in bed, windows closed, curtains drawn as the light caused me to react with super sneezing too, just a box of tissues and told off if I used the whole box and got through toilet rolls too. Told off for sniffing I just couldn't help, it made me vomit too and gave me incredible sinus pain. My family were not poor, they could afford antihistamines, though as I was a child they would have been prescribed for free. I just didn't understand why they allowed me to suffer so horrendously. I used to cry alone in bed and feel that they didn't love me at all "I believe I was right about that with all the disapproving looks and put downs I got" they ensured my education got messed up completely. I was allergic to so much and definitely needed to be in hospital under specialist care I was only tiny, a skinny 4ft waif and completely exhausted in every single way. And in the past few years since just before my coma living in a house with black mould and damp has seen my allergies return but not with the same vengeance as in my youth. I am not in a financial position to leave this house either. Trapped in it. My asthma made brittle by this house, I have permanent mould spores on my lungs. This house makes me very ill and it is a house in the UK not a hot country abroad that would dry it out. And hot country that would take my allergies away. I have since my coma also developed incredibly intensely itchy and deforming contact dermatitis on my hands that when it flares up leaves me unable to use my hands and in hospital with them as an inpatient at times.