Of all the triggers out there, my kid’s weirdest one by far involves liquids.
Namely, if she drinks very cold things too quickly, her coughing fits will start up.
She can drink cool beverages fast or the coldest ones slowly, but for whatever reason the very cold + very fast combo sets her airways off every time.
What’s your/your child’s most unusual trigger?
Carbonated drinks! Weirdddd.
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Not a big deal though cause I don’t like them much anyways
Cold drinks get me going too.
My other wierd one is the office of one of my supervisors. I cough my way through every meeting we have there, and I don’t know why. He’s a total clean freak and there’s no noticable smell.
my mother’s living room. She’s ok in all the rest of the house, but when she goes into the living room (and there are cool dolphin statue things in there) she will start to cough
She doesn’t drink a whole lot of really cold things, or carbonated drinks…so I don’t know if those would trigger her. (she doesn’t put ice in anything to drink, and things like juice boxes are often kept on the counter, rather than the frig) Makes me ALMOST want to give her a freezing cold glass of something to see. (but I won’t)
Kerri–These drink-based triggers that aren’t food allergies are bizarre. When I first started noticing the kid’s, she was about 5 years-old and I remember thinking, “I must be wrong. This can’t possibly be a trigger.”
Sarah & Sara–One room/office only? That’s pretty strange, too, and – I’d imagine – frustrating, since you can’t pin down the source of the flare.
I have a feeling, though I could be wrong, it’s the rust colored, low pile shag that’s been there since the early 80’s…but my mom is a super vacuumer, I mean, she vacuums the couches and the chairs and pulls off cushions….AND M doesn’t have dust mite allergies, so who knows. We try to avoid that room.
Periods. Which I’ve come to realize isn’t such a weird trigger after all, now that I’ve found other asthmatics who are triggered by it too. But non-asthmatics and asthmatic males are always surprised by it. I love asking asthmatic boys if they were aware that periods are an asthma trigger. They’re always in utter and complete shock. Lucky ducky boys
I’m tempted to ask him if he uses air fresheners or fabric fresheners (like Febreeze) since both of those can trigger my asthma long after the scent is gone.
Sugar surprised me at first, but not after I thought about it. Sugar is an inflammatory. Halloween, Christmas and Valentine’s Day are bad for my son. I hate to make him feel different from other kids, so I try to sneak the candy away as well as explaining to him WHY he shouldn’t eat all of his candy at once. He’s getting older and I think he’s on to me. When I ask to “check out” what he got he watches me like hawk!
Loud music with bass. I’ve found no other asthmatic with this trigger, but at school, b/c the worship music in chapel has electric guitars, electric bass, and drums, I always get triggered, and start to cough like crazy and wheeze mildly too. The vibrations just wreck havoc with my lungs. I’m better if I remember to premedicate, but don’t remember most of the time. Sometimes playing my violin will trigger me too, but not as often.
Bass can make me cough a bit, but only if I’m already flaring due to a cold or flu… I think it shakes around some of the mucous buildup I get when I have a cold.
Singing can make me tight, but that’s not surprising to me; the breathing pattern required for singing is similar to that with exercise.
Miss monkey flares with the usual stuff (hot AND cold weather yay us, rain, exercise, colds/infections etc) and she doesnt test as allergic but for her milk is BAD… emotional reactions ( happy OR sad, crying or laughter) can set her off but only if shes already flaring, tho anxiety as a whole, stress gets her every time i swear. Hers arent that weird i guess, tho she seems to flare with pollen despite her allergy testing insisting she isnt allergic
Samantha, you can get false negatives on allergy testing. I did with tree pollen. I’m hugely allergic to it, and my allergist agrees that I am based on my symptoms, but I tested negative to it on the skin test. Same with ragweed for me. You might want to ask her doctor if there’s a possibility it was a false negative.
I’m thinking we need to look at that. They initially did a standard scratch test on her back, got NO hits. then they did some subcutaneous (im taking medical terminology in college right now can ya tell lol) injections on her arms and pronounced her allergic to mold and nothing else. But she definitely seems to flare when the pollen counts go up (and since im allergic to pollens as well as a laundry list of other things i generally know)
She could have developed (more) allergies since her last testing, too – unless it was recent? I’ve developed some minor allergies in the last few years, I’m in my early 30’s, and I’ve never in my life had them before.
I too would wonder along the lines of false negatives (which the last allergist I saw doesn’t think can really happen, but whatever), or that like Amy said, maybe developed allergies since testing? I’ve been tested more than once and only reacted to like 3-4 things, even though I know in real life I react to way more… especially milk. This is with both skin and blood tests.
I guess I could also say dairy is a trigger for me, though I haven’t had any recently so I don’t really know if it’s a direct trigger, or if it triggers an allergic reaction with runny nose and all the rest, which then triggers my asthma. I don’t think I want to try to find out.
My allergist told me that false negatives are more likely if you a) don’t react to the control allergen, or b) if you have a dermographic reaction (ie, you react to everything, even the non-allergic control). Both make it difficult to tell if you’re really allergic or not allergic to the allergen.
I had a dermographic reaction, and my non-allergic control reacted as badly as my allergic control. Therefore, they could only tell the stuff that I raised a really big weal, and the rest they have to diagnose symptomatically since they really couldn’t tell based on the test.
her allergy test was just about a year ago, so fairly recent really… but her pediatrician (who, again, is amazing) says it can be…faulty with kids so im not too sure
I know mine havent changed much since i was a kid… dust, mold, mildew, cut grass, “multiple regional pollens” (which ive since discovered means basically all of them), milk, strawberries, and weirdly enough while i test as allergic to animal dander i will “acclimate” so to speak to dogs and cats and my own dont cause me issues, only new ones till my body gets used to them. Rabbits however? yeah i react STRONGLY to rabbits, every single time, no matter how many times ive been around them
I kind of reverse-acclimate to pet dander, if that makes sense. The longer I’m around a pet, the worse my breathing gets. I react STRONGLY to hay and dust. The other thing I react really strongly to is any kind of lavender, be it scent, flower, spray, herb, whatever. I have to avoid it (luckily, lavender is not a popular cooking herb here, unlike some other areas of the country, so I’m pretty safe at restaurants, etc).