For 39 years, Jennifer Sims enjoyed prawn toast, battered calamari and shrimp fried rice.
But Sims’ fondness for seafood almost killed her this year: a prawn dumpling at a work lunch triggered an anaphylactic reaction, and an ambulance raced her to hospital.
Jennifer Sims had an allergic reaction to a prawn dumpling at a work lunch.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“In the restaurant, I started getting tingly lips,” she recalled. “I started feeling really sick.”
By the time Sims arrived at the emergency department on May 11, her face was covered in hives and she was wheezing.
Sims is among a growing number of Australian adults who have food allergy, with doctors reporting a rise in the number of patients they are seeing who have become allergic later in life.
Melbourne defender Steven May.Credit: AFL Photos
While a lot of the focus over the past few decades has been on preventing and managing food allergies in children, around one in 50 adults have a food allergy. An estimated 15 per cent of this cohort developed their allergy in adulthood.
Melbourne premiership defender Steven May is also among this group: the footballer spent a night in hospital after suffering an allergic reaction to food during a night out with his partner.
It is believed it was the first time the 31-year-old had experienced an allergic reaction.
A new registry to be piloted next year by the National Allergy Centre of Excellence hopes to shed light on the prevalence of adult-onset food allergies in Australia. It will require participating hospitals to record additional details of patients who present to the emergency department with acute allergies, including their potential allergy and whether it’s the first time they’ve had a reaction.
The centre’s director, Professor Kirsten Perrett, suspects cases of adult-onset food allergies are being fuelled by exposure to a broader range of allergens and a breakdown of our immune system’s tolerance to them.
She said this breakdown may be caused by changing environmental factors, such as reduced exposure to microbes thanks to our clean lifestyles, and low vitamin D levels due to decreased sun exposure.
“More research is needed,” Perrett said. “It’s really fascinating.”
A food allergy is a potentially deadly immune system reaction to food that is harmless to most people. Symptoms can include hives, itching in the mouth, abdominal pain, nausea and in extreme cases, anaphylaxis, which involves a tightening of the airways.
Shellfish is the most common food allergy among adults, with this allergen also triggering the most severe anaphylaxis.
Attention has been on childhood allergies, but experts have also seen an uptick in adults.
“Every year, around Christmas, people get severe anaphylactic reactions to shrimp and prawns without previously realising they were allergic,” said Professor Andreas Lopata, a James Cook University food allergy expert and chief investigator with the Centre for Food Allergy Research.
Lopata said shellfish allergy was more prevalent among people who handle and breathe in the allergen such as chefs and fishmongers.
“I have come across chefs in Melbourne who have developed seafood allergy and can no longer work in kitchens.”
People who are allergic to dust mites have an increased risk of becoming allergic to shellfish because both groups share similar allergens, according to Lopata.
Professor Jo Douglass, a Director of Research at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, has seen an uptick in the number of patients presenting with adult-onset food allergies over the past five years.
“Whilst food allergies more commonly onset in the first five years of life, they can onset in later years,” said Douglass, who is also head of the University of Melbourne’s Department of Medicine.
Her research has linked the use of goat milk soaps to the development of goat milk allergies in adults. “Be cautious about using skin products that contain food,” she warns. “Particularly if you have broken skin.”
There is currently no cure for food allergies.
Douglass recommends that people with symptoms see an allergy specialist so that they can determine what they are reacting to and avoid it. They should also be provided with an allergy plan, which should detail when to use an adrenaline autoinjector or antihistamine.
Developing a food allergy in adulthood can turn a person’s life upside down, according to Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia chief executive Maria Said.
“It can induce a lot of anxiety,” she said.
“Young children often don’t remember their allergic reactions, whereas if you have a near-death experience as an adult, you are very aware of what happened.”
She said it was difficult for adults to access allergy specialists due to high demand and cost.
Sims now carries two adrenaline autoinjectors and fastidiously checks menus for shellfish.
She is urging people to seek medical attention if they are experiencing signs of an allergic reaction.
“Don’t leave it to chance,” she said.
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