idem

woo-hoo! i'm a frickin genius!!!

hooray!

ok, let me explain. when i was around 12 i developed seasonal allergies. typical hay fever stuff in the spring and summer. it soon became apparent that allergic reactions were triggered by certain fruits and sometimes vegetables (apples, pears, plums, strawberries, fresh green beans, however citrus, bananas, melon are ok). when i was 17, on a camping trip with my youth group i decided to eat an apple, there was a big bushel and i couldn't resist, and i was fine. which lead me to believe i was no longer allergic to apples. the next spring i discovered that was not true and my allergies flared up once again. by trial and error i deduced that my allergies were ok and the fall and winter, and active in the spring and summer. i also discovered that drinking water helped soothe my allergy attacks and halted my sneezing. these attacks are not life threatening, but they're uncomfortable and annoying (very distruptive to those around me too). so that's how i've functioned for many years, thankfully apple season is in the fall so i don't miss out on that. i remember telling melissa about my seasonal allergy to fruit and she did not believe me. so i've been planning on eating an apple in front of her in the summer and then again in the winter to prove it.

cooked fruits and vegetables are a-ok.

thru my own wits, i concluded that there was a connections between the active pollen in the air and the pollen in the fruit. my theory became... that my body could handle a certain amount of pollen, but an excess of that lead to allergy fits. so in the fall and winter when trees are not pollenating (i'm allergic to trees) i am ok. now, i'm just a lay-person, i don't know about fancy "science" stuff, i didn't even know if fruit actually had pollen in it, but that's my theory and i've lived by it for a number of years. it's served me well.

this morning after my mid-morning snack i ate two kiwis (they're a great source of vitamin C), and oddly enough i had a reaction to them. this has never happened before, and it's annoying because the kinds of fruits i'm able to eat are becoming less and less. so i googled "seasonal allergies to fruit" and found a very insightful article!!!

basically.. it's called "food-pollen allergies". it explained that during allergy season (hay fever season) the body misinterprets the fruit as pollen and therefore reacts to it. the reaction doesn't occure when the food is cooked. it also explained that these kinds of food-pollen allergies appear with age and are not like true food allergies (nuts and shellfish) that appear when the person is a child. AND it said that drinking water helps wash the pollens out of the mouth. YAY!! affirmation! i love affirmation. i'm excited to finally understand my allergies and it's neat to see that i'd figured it out myself thru trial and error. i feel kind of relieved to understand this allergy, that's great!

they build it up just to burn it back down.