Just hours before she hit the stage at her concert in Tampa, Grande postponed her performance after an unexpected allergic reaction to some unassuming tomatoes. The singer was surprised as she never had a problem with tomatoes before.
Later she found that she had an unfortunate allergic reaction to the fruit and her throat was closed but was slowly making progress. Grande, 25, wrote on Instagram explaining that she also had postponed her Orlando show and mentioned that it was totally unfair that an Italian woman in her mid-twenties could be developing an allergy to tomatoes!
More about Allergies
People generally have their allergies act up either during their initial elementary school years or when early adulthood (from 18 to the early 20s) sets in. Over time, people who have had symptoms of mild allergies can see an increase in their problems with more symptoms. Is it possible to outgrow your known allergies? Allergic reactions have been known to change over time, and even entirely disappear in some cases. A majority of people with allergies develop them when they are kids or even infants and as they grow older, some individuals are able to leave their pet allergies, hay fever, and even food-based allergies, behind.
While it may seem surprising to discover a new food allergy well past childhood years, it’s not uncommon. But the problem is not usually the foodstuff itself, but because of the pollen that sits on the food. People usually are allergic to pollen, which have certain proteins similar in structure to proteins in various foods, and when you eat the food, you could have a local, allergic-type reaction, which could affect your mouth and throat and lips. It’s called oral allergy syndrome, or pollen food syndrome, and occurs more commonly in older children and younger adults and is fairly frequent and is most likely what happened to Grande.
Doctors say that they often see patients who say that they ate some food and they’re allergic to it, but it is probable they are not allergic to that food and that they are actually allergic to something like birch pollen. This then creates a problem with fruits like apples and cherries and leads to a reaction with itchiness in the mouth. However, these oral allergy reactions may not be as serious as total anaphylaxis that follows peanut allergies. It is not common for people with such an oral allergy syndrome to have anaphylaxis, where it affects organ systems outside the mouth and throat and is very rare.
The Possible Remedies
In most cases, people revert back to normal within a few hours. These reactions tend to go away by themselves and tend to be relatively short-lived, as the acids in the stomach break down these proteins and that usually ends the reaction. The best treatment is avoidance. And often they can tolerate the problematic vegetable or fruit. But Doctors opine that if people are unsure if they have a full allergy to a food or oral allergy syndrome, they should consult an allergist so as to pin down the diagnosis and identify the problem. About 75% of people acquire their traditional or pollen allergens when they’re at age 25 or so, so it is less common later on but does happen. It’s important to keep this in mind, as allergies develop at any age. Microwave or cook for but never eats raw.