What It's Really Like to Be Allergic to Almost Every Food
(Courtesy of Lauren Ahn)
L.A.-based comedy writer Cindy Kaplan, 28, is allergic to fish, nuts, leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, avocado, artichokes, olives, horseradish, berries, dates, figs, melons, peaches, plums, grapefruit, flax, buckwheat, cottonseed, cucumbers, gum, peanuts, eggs, wheat, dairy, soy, beef, potatoes, garlic, onions, rice, sesame, barley, yeast, tomato, chocolate, coffee, pork, cinnamon, oranges, and peas. Or she was. After a 4.5-month elimination diet and new drug, she’s reintroducing herself to foods she’s never tried out of fear. Cosmopolitan.com recently talked to her about what life is like when every meal is a minefield.
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(Courtesy of Cindy Kaplan)
How young were you when you discovered your first allergy?
I was only a couple of days old when my mother ate fish while breastfeeding me and I got really sick. As a baby, I’d get sick so frequently until she wound up cutting foods out of her diet until she stopped breastfeeding, when my doctors put together a list of foods that I should stay away from until age 12. They thought I’d grow out of my allergies as I got older. [Editor’s note: She did not grow out of it.]
Most kids eat can eat almost whatever they want. What was it like to have such a restrictive diet as child?
I was raised to eat only kosher foods, so eating in public was always something I observed but didn’t take part in. I didn’t realize it was strange that I wasn’t allowed to eat certain foods when I was a kid. I just thought children couldn’t eat those foods, in general. In my teens, I saw a 2-year-old eating a piece of olive-topped pizza, and I started freaking out, like, Who feeds their child olives? My friends were like, “What’s wrong with you? Kids can eat olives.” Of course, it was only me who couldn’t.
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What happens when you have an allergic reaction?
When I eat something I’m allergic to, I can get itchy, burning hives, dizziness, vision loss, itchy ears, and shortness of breath. Sometimes, my lips, tongue, or throat swell so much that it’s hard to get air out. It’s exhausting to feel like your body has to try so hard just to stay alive. I usually take Benadryl and Zyrtec and sleep it off. And carry an EpiPen for emergencies. I’ve only had to use one twice, thankfully.
What’s it like to inject yourself with an EpiPen shot?
It’s a little nerve-racking. You stab the EpiPen in your outer thigh, you hold it for five seconds, and then you immediately get to a hospital so they can monitor you or give you more medication. It’s pretty painful and leaves a little bit of a black and blue mark, but it works instantly. I’ve gotten side effects like uncontrollable shaking, but I’d take that over an allergic reaction any day of the week.
You’re allergic to a lot of foods. What do you even eat?
The list has changed a lot in the last few years. In 2011, I started reacting to everything I ate and didn’t know why. I saw an allergist who tested me for a bunch of allergens. He recommended a diet to eliminate all allergens and avoid eating [each non-allergenic food] more than three times per week, which can sometimes help reduce food allergies and prevent new allergies from developing. Afterward, I tested negative for soy, dairy, eggs, potatoes, [and] beef allergies, and I was able to slowly reintroduce those foods to my diet.
Now I get monthly injections of a drug that allows me to eat small amounts of foods I’ve never been able to eat successfully or even be around. (A month ago I had my first piece of lettuce, and it was delicious. No one told me!)
I still can’t really eat big salads or at restaurants because of the chance of cross contamination. But I can eat a lot of protein (like chicken, turkey, and lamb), rice, lentils, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, squash, sweet potatoes, corn, pineapple, and grapes, to name a few. I eat very little processed foods and rely on food I cook myself. I’ve had to learn how to cook more food and how to be a little bit experimental with dishes.
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Your food allergies (and kosher restrictions) must make it difficult enough to find safe foods to eat. What was it like to stick to the even more restrictive elimination diet that your allergist recommended?
I had to cook every single thing I ate myself to avoid cross contamination. I ate a lot of lamb, turkey, chicken, quinoa, lentils, sweet potato, squash, and beans — no herbs or seasoning besides salt and pepper, no processed foods, no sugar. I couldn’t have any wine or beer or whiskey or wheat-based vodka. And I could only eat each permitted food three times a week. It didn’t seem sustainable because there just weren’t enough foods that I could eat to constitute a meal. I wasn’t eating enough calories, and I lost a ton of weight over the 4.5-month period. To get more calories, I would add oil to all of my food, eat chicken skin and lamb fat drippings over quinoa. It’s not a favorite I would do again. I was exhausted and I was dizzy a lot of the time. I seriously craved sugar.
Do you feel like your reactions are triggered by anxiety or that they’re 100 percent physical?
That’s something that I’ve struggled with answering my whole life. I want to believe that none of this is real, and I’ve been accused by enough people and doctors and friends and boyfriends that this is 100 percent in my head. But I’ve been surprised by so many reactions, and I’ve tested positive for so many food allergies that I know it’s real.
Isn’t it scary to eat foods that have seriously threatened your health in the past?
It’s really weird, like someone told you, “By the way, you can eat leather now.” Even if tasted good, it would be hard to learn to recognize it as food. In the same way, new foods feel so foreign to me.
Is it hard for you to relate to people who restrict what they eat on purpose to lose weight?
Sometimes it’s hard for me to talk to my friends about giving up certain foods or overeating, because I don’t have a choice about avoiding certain foods. I think they’re lucky because they don’t have to watch what they eat, but they think I’m lucky because I don’t have to think about it — I have to avoid certain foods because my life literally depends on it.
How do your allergies affect your dating life?
I’m single, but I try really hard to not let my food allergies affect dating. I don’t necessarily want to share my medical history with a guy I just met because as soon as you tell someone you’re allergic to something, they ask, “Oh, really? What are you allergic to?” and then you end up talking about it the whole time. So if a guy asks me if I want to get dinner, I just say no — even though it makes me come off as high-maintenance to be picky about plans. I try to pivot and have drinks or do things that don’t really involve food until I know whether or not I like the guy.
Have you ever had a reaction to kissing someone?
In college, my boyfriend ate a hot dog with sauerkraut, which I’m allergic to, and I got terrible hives. That taught me to be careful. Now when I’m out with a guy I’m dating who wants to order food that I’m allergic to, I’ll tell him, “I’m not going to stop you. But if you order it, you’re not going to be able to kiss me for X amount of time.” Of course it’s an awkward thing to say on a first date before I’m sure I want to kiss a guy, so sometimes I don’t say anything. If a guy gets mad because I can’t kiss him after eating, he’s not the right guy for me.
Are there any advantages to having such severe food allergies?
It makes a good excuse to get out of kissing! I went on a date with one guy that I wasn’t that into from the get-go. When he asked me if he should get the pasta with or without mushrooms, which I’m allergic to, I was like, “The one with mushrooms sounds better.” I couldn’t kiss him afterward if I wanted to.
Otherwise, my allergies have taught me to be grateful for all the little things — when I breathe, I know what it’s like to not breathe. Every time I can introduce a new food to my diet without reacting to it, I’m grateful because I know what life was like without it. I’ve learned that everyone is given some sort of a challenge in life, and mine is allergies. There are some things I couldn’t handle, but this I can.
As told to Elizabeth Narins
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