It's so strange...hard to swallow, I felt like my chest was ripping open.
I've never met anyone that had this problem, always thought I was the only one. I always get a strage reaction from folks when I tell them..."really, that's so weird" - ha - sure all of you get it to.
Maybe we're all just VERY special people, that's what I like to think.
Big Love!
The only thing we can do is to religiously read all labels, and ask many,many, many questions of our servers at restaurants.
My wife is all over it now when food shopping. She has even been checking the labels on items that she has been buying for me all the time over the last 15 years or so-she catches a couple of ingredient "switches" every year that way! Recently I asked her to pick up some Totino's pizza rolls as I used to eat them by the ton years ago, and had gotten tired of them. I decided I wanted some again. I reached in the freezer to look for them the other night and they weren't there. I called her to complain (ok WHINE) about it and she informed me that I couldn't have them any more, the pepperoni contains turkey. TURKEY....Cheap bastiges, but I digress.
As for restaurants, isn't it funny that they will fall all over themselves to make sure we know that a peanut of a shellfish may have been located within 50 miles of the establishment sometime in the last 100 years and to use utmost caution when ordering food because of that, but they think nothing of just switching up regular salami for turkey salami just to save a few pennies a slice. I like others here have been caught out many times by eating the same "safe" meal many many times only to be screwed over all of a sudden by a swap. One local establishment now has added the word "Turkey" next to "Hot Dog" on their menu because I got tired of it all and threatened to sue them as I had eaten hundreds of their hot dogs over the years with no issue then one day I got that familiar itchy tongue and tight throat. I probably wouldn't have, but they didn't know that.
Now a piece of advice for those of you who have had more severe reactions. I am a supervisor of a 911 center. You wouldn't believe some of the idiotic things people dial 911 for. Yet at the same time some of those very same people refuse to dial 911 when they really need to because "I'll be fine after a while and y'all are way to busy for me to bug you with this, it's no big deal."
Well, I am here to tell you that IT IS A BIG DEAL. MAKE SURE YOU CARRY AN EPI PEN AND DIAL 911 AT THE EARLIEST ONSET OF SYMPTOMS! (Caps added for effect). Do not play doctor, let the docs tell you that you are going to be ok. Just because the last reaction didn't kill you doesn't mean that the next one won't!
Rant over, and although I am very happy to see that I am not alone, I am also very sad to see that as well, if that makes any sense...
I have been deathly allergic to poultry since I was 5 years old. My mom says I ate it a baby but when I was about 5 - I remember eating chicken and going out to play with my friends, the next thing I know everyone is running to my house to get my mom because I couldn't breath. Everytime I ate it as a kid, I would get an anaphaytic reaction and rushed to the ER. This went on all through my child hood due to poultry being in foods that you would not realize. I was even rushed to the hospital for eating chicken by accident at my best friends wedding when I was 20 and I was maid of honor! Pretty much since then I have stayed clear of sauces, soups, chinese food, anything that I suspect might have poultry in it. I am now 44 years old and carry a epi pen everywhere - thank god I married a chef because he has a good sense if poultry can be in certain food items - on top of that he cooks me things I might not be able to eat out Anyway, never met anyone with this allergy - even the allergist looks at me a little funny - but great to see people out there with the same issue.
Same symptoms here. Allergic to SMELL of fish, get bad asthma attacks. Accidentally ingesting fish would probably put me in a hospital. As far as anything with feathers, I get itchy lips, thick saliva, "lump" feeling in the chest, bloating. NEVER order a soup at a restaurant. They ALL have chicken broth. Just had a hot dog which was supposed to be "all beef", got sick as hell. The only thing that seems to relieve symptoms is inducing vomiting ASAP. With induced vomiting the symptoms go away in 30 min - 1h. Without it , I don't even know how long they would last. 2-3 hours maybe?
Wow! I'm so excited to meet to many people that have experienced the same thing. I am allergic to chicken. I've always had food allergies but when I was 16, I was tested again for food allergies because I couldn't figure out what exactly was causing my symptoms. I'm glad I did. I tested allergic to 20 new foods and after abstaining from them for a month and then reintroducing them one by one found reactions to 16 of them. The two with the worse symptoms were chicken and cola. I ate chicken and drank cola all the time! But once I stopped eating them and reintroduced them... oh my. With both I get that pressure feeling at the middle of my chest. It is like heartburn but more of a pressure. My back hurts and I have both diarrhea and vomiting at the same time until every bit of food in my system is gone. If I ate salad with my cola or chicken, it comes back up or out. It takes a few hours and then it takes days for my system to again accommodate food without diarrhea. But the stomach cramps! They are so painful. It isn't the sharp gas pains but a strong squeezing feeling. I never thought to induce vomiting or drink a lot of water to help when vomiting. But I do carry an Epi Pen because a few times I did have my throat swell to where I couldn't breathe. Chicken is in EVERYTHING! I never eat soup when out. But I will say that when at Disneyworld, they took my food allergies (all 25 of them, yes I've added some since I was 16) seriously. I was even able to go through a buffet! I NEVER get to go to a buffet. The chef came over to my table and escorted me to the buffet and showed me EVERYTHING I could eat and what I could not. I really trusted him when he said that one dish did not have ANY chicken in it but a member of the staff accidentally used a spoon from a dish that DID have chicken in it and placed it in the wrong dish. I felt I could trust him if his staff was that diligent and they knew to tell him. I had no idea how excited I would be at 41 to eat in a buffet again...without fear. Who wants to be on a vacation and stuck in a bathroom for 2 hrs with embarrassing symptoms while your kids wait for you? It was a little thing that meant a LOT to me. People without severe food allergies really don't understand what it is like. With the rest of my food allergies, I am really lucky that I can handle a small amount without a severe reaction but chicken and cola..uuggghhh! Cola is easy to avoid, chicken... not so much. Is anyone also allergic to cola. I don't know anyone else who is. I'm allergic to chocolate and i is a HUGE migraine trigger. If chocolate is in it, I WILL get a migraine. I've found chocolate in strange things, like chili. Some chili has chocolate in it. Oh, I just found out that Bob Evans uses chicken stock in their tuna salad! So, be careful. Also, a lot of pork dishes and pork roasts are cooked in chicken stock. So never assume you are safe!
I am allergic to chicken and turkey but can have eggs. Like many of you, when I was a kid my parents thought I was crazy when I told them "chicken makes my lips swell up" (i was young), and I would refuse to eat it. On day I had some turkey goolosh that I was told it was beef. It was not pretty and I could not breathe, lips swelled,etc. They have believe me ever since. I can tell when chicken is used in pepperoni, or restaurants us turkey bacon, or is they use oil to fry chicken. Has anyone tried Organic chicken? I have heard that it is possibly the injected steroids used in the birds and not protein related. Thanks
I am also allergic to poultry and fish, such as haddock. I can eat salmon, tuna and shellfish. Also allergic to eggs, although the allergy seems to take the form of severe stomach pain and nausea.
im not allergic to poultry but im doing a research project and would like more insight on the situation
I'm 66 and the allergy only began to manifest in the lat 10 yers. Also, my symptomns seem to be limited to servere hives and other skin rections. Turkey actually came first. Same thing happened to my mother when she was in her 50s or 60s -- it makes thanksgiving a real bore.
I've been allergic to poultry my whole life. (26 yr old) I can eat eggs. I have an Epipen I must carry just in case. I've heard that FREE RANGE poultry might be ok. However, I rather not have to use my epipen. Like someone on here has already said, its a great way to start a dinner conversation.
Anyone have a chicken (and egg) intolerance and be able to fix it? Or take something for it? I am 45 because became intolerant in the last 4 months. I can't eat dairy either.
Hi Guys. My wife has this and we found that it was not the meat type all along but a sensitivity towards the routine antibiotics they use when raising battery chickens.
She is actually a living lie detector when it comes to true freerange and organic poultry because she can eat those to heart's delight.
To see if you may also be fortunate enough to start eating chicken again after years of staying away go find yourself a reputable butcher or grocer who sells true freerange or even better if you can find organic. Eat a piece the size of a grape or pecan nut and wait a day... then the next day should you not encounter issues try a piece the size of an egg the next. If this does nothing to you you have been staying away from poultry for nothing - cause it's in most cases (in my opinion) the poisons these companies inject into the livestock... and all this just to protect their investment.
We have since also changed over to wild caught fish, freerange chicken and lamb and also we steer clear of milk containing RBST hormones which is a milk production stimulator - and can cause young girls to develop bigger breasts than they would have naturally.