My partner is allergic to chocolate, at 1 part in 400,000, which DOES make Valentine's Day somewhat annoying, as I'm a bit of a chocaholic. I've never met, or even heard of, this allergy before, and wondered if there are any other people on here with experience of rare allergies to common foods?
I once read a magazine article about this girl who was allergic to water (it was in my nieces "Biss"). I looked it up and it was true so I'd say that's a very rare allergy. And my mum's allergic to sugar. (Her fingers go red & blotchy and they swell).
Thanks for the answers guys. Doodlebug, you have that in common with my Ma's best friend. He can't even wear aftershave...
Thanks for the answers so far, guys. I'm more interested in people with a severe intolerance to things though. My partner is likely to die, should I kiss him after eating chocolate, and it's that level of allergy I'm curious about. not that I'm morbid, or anything... ;o)
An allergy to food items is quite different from an intolerance. Most of us have an intolerance to some foodstuff or ingredients but less than 2% of the population are actually allergic to any particular food. Within the small number of people genuinely suffering an allergy, chocolate as a cause only affects a tiny proportion. I have a friend who suffered anaphylaxis (which can be fatal) while eating chocolate. Whilst the chocolate was initially thought to have been the cause it later transpired that she had developed a nut allergy and that the chocolate had contained traces of nut. She now has to take extreme measures to ensure that she never eats anything that may contain, or have been in contact with, nuts or nut products.
Nuts has to be the worst allergy to have. When I worked in a pub, we had to have health and hygiene training. They told us that a man had nearly died because he had an allergy to nuts and he had had some apple pie as desert in the restaurant. There were no nuts in the apple pie, but the knife which had been used to cut it, had previously been used on a food containg nuts - but it had already been thoroughly washed and all it had on it was nut oils!!!!!!
I am allergic to hair dye... I had a henna tattoo in Italy in 2002, and it freaked out and burnt my back. This made me allergic to hair dye which i only found out when i dyed my hair... which made my head freak out and burn with little spots popping all over my head making it almost too unbearably sore to brush or wash. I will have to go grey gracefully!