TVScope: Allergic to Everything Channel 4, Thursday, June 30th, 9pm
Liz, an archaeology student, went into anaphylactic shock when she walked through an orchard with hazelnut trees.
Anaphylactic shock is an extreme reaction to an allergen and can kill within minutes unless an antidote is immediately administered. Liz has had 50-100 anaphylactic shocks since she suddenly developed a series of allergies in her late teens.
Her parents have had a second phone line installed in their home so that anybody who needs to find out how to help her when she goes into shock can get through at once.
She is one of the many millions of people in the industrialised world for whom allergies and dealing with them have become part of their way of life. Some 40 per cent of children in the UK have an allergic reaction to something, we were told in this Channel Four documentary.
The causes of allergies and of the rise in allergic reactions remain unclear. In some cases there may be a genetic factor. In others, our clean and "too healthy" western lifestyle may be the culprit as we fail to develop resistance to bugs which are no longer allowed to get into contact with us as we grow up. Some blame pollutants and food additives. Whatever the cause, there is little doubt that allergies bring home to us in a very real way the fact that we are not separate from the world around us.
The documentary followed the story of three children and one adult with allergies. One of the great difficulties faced by parents and, indeed adults, in the UK in dealing with allergies is the shortage of allergy specialists and a lack of allergy services in the NHS. There is an important point in this for our own health planners.
Children develop allergies but can grow out of them quite quickly. But if allergy tests are not available for years, children can continue to be protected against allergies long after the allergies have gone.
Ewan (8) had tested allergic, years previously, to artificial flavourings, to milk and to many other substances. This made shopping for food for him a nightmare. For instance, milk and its derivatives such as skim milk powder are present in an enormous range of foods. His whole life revolved around the allergy and so did that of his mother. He carried a list of his allergies on a key ring to bring to school and to his friends' houses. At the age of eight, his turn finally came up for another test. It showed that the allergies had gone. His mother had been protecting him against threats which no longer existed. Instead of joy, she felt guilt. She had restricted his life in her efforts to protect him and it now seemed that these efforts had been unnecessary for some years.
Ewan realised that his life was about to change dramatically but said he didn't want his life to be different - a reasonable enough reaction when you have only known one way of life.
So the message for our health planners is that we need to make allergy testing through the health service readily available. And unless things change dramatically, allergies are going to be an increasingly important preoccupation of the population.
Meanwhile, people with allergies to a wide range of products must keep themselves healthy and, in some cases, alive by acting almost like detectives when it comes to buying food. It can be an exhausting, dispiriting and sometimes despairing process.
As Liz said, "I feel like I'm being held to ransom by my own body."
Padraig O'Morain is a journalist and counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.