I always wondered how kids end up with pollen allergies. I mean who doesn't take their kid outside in the spring?
Or is the offending pollen only endemic to certan areas, so you could grow up in a normal way somewhere and still get it?
I'm not strongly allergic to anything, but certain mosquitoes and also horseflies will make the bite swell up a ridiculous amount sometimes. But it never happened with the mosquitoes and horseflies where I grew up and still doesn't when I visit.
But I'm also allergic to certain soaps starting in my 20s, yet I'm pretty sure my parents gave me plenty of baths as a baby. It did occur after a course of antibiotics, maybe that helped trigger it somehow.
> Or is the offending pollen only endemic to certan areas, so you could grow up in a normal way somewhere and still get it?
This happened to me. I never had seasonal allergies growing up in New York, but in Massachusetts I am brutally allergic to whatever pollen is in the air in the spring and fall.
I also never was allergic to my pet cats until I went away to college and wasn't constantly exposed to cat hair. I first started getting itchy eyes when they slept on my bed after I came back home to visit.
> It did occur after a course of antibiotics, maybe that helped trigger it somehow.
This doesn't surprise me at all. I'm glad the research is finally starting to catch up to this kind of thing too. People with issues like this have been pooh-poohed out of doctors' offices for decades.
Actually thinking back... I think my first experience having the reaction to mosquitoes was vacationing in Denmark at 15, and at 14 I had burst appendecitis with moderately progressed peritonitis that required extensive laparotomy with a hefty antibiotic course to prevent progression to fullblown sepsis. The infection even flared up weeks later(or it was a new infection) and I had to do another course on a different antibiotic this time. It was around 15 that my mental health really started to deteriorate too.
The one mentioned earlier was at age 20 due to severe pneumonia. And my mental health took yet another nosedive after that as well.
The appendix interacts with the gut microbiome and the immune system, which interact with eachother, and both have been linked to mental illness in various ways.
I always felt like all these things were somehow connected but I could never quite nail it down. I asked my GP once but she gave me a look that could only mean "who do you think I am, Greg House?" And very little concrete came of it.
The allergies might be the "signal" that helps give weight to this theory beyond my fool's hope that it can all be cured with a fecal transplant or something.
Or is the offending pollen only endemic to certan areas, so you could grow up in a normal way somewhere and still get it?
I'm not strongly allergic to anything, but certain mosquitoes and also horseflies will make the bite swell up a ridiculous amount sometimes. But it never happened with the mosquitoes and horseflies where I grew up and still doesn't when I visit.
But I'm also allergic to certain soaps starting in my 20s, yet I'm pretty sure my parents gave me plenty of baths as a baby. It did occur after a course of antibiotics, maybe that helped trigger it somehow.