Just One Bite

It seemed funny at the time, but as it turned out, my brother is allergic to peanuts. Not only can’t he ingest peanut butter, but a mere whiff of the stuff can trigger an allergic reaction. A taste can, chas v’shalom, be life-threatening.

“When I’m having an allergic reaction, my lips and mouth start to swell. My eyes begin to itch and become watery,” my brother describes. “When it’s a really bad reaction, I’ll get a terrible itching in my throat. It feels like it’s closing up on me, which is what’s actually happening. The airways are swelling shut.”

My brother is one of the 31 million people in America who suffer from food allergies. For these people, a small taste of everyday foods can cause mild to severe reactions that wreak havoc in their bodies.

Mild symptoms can be treated with a simple oral histamine, but severe symptoms such as anaphylaxis, a life-threatening reaction in which the airways swell shut, require immediate medical care. Each year, there are around 30,000 allergy-related emergency room visits in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).