Allergic to everything

I watched a program last night about allergies, and it featured one girl who was allergic to everything from fruit and nuts to bees and grass. If she came into contact with one of her allergens she'd immediately go into anaphylactic shock and start suffocating, semi-conscious, until someone injected her with adrenaline.

At one point she went into shock because someone sitting next to her opened a horse chestnut.

This made me think about two things. First - I may be made miserable by IBS but at least I do not have to worry about dying if I accidentally look at a chestnut. And for this I should be grateful.

And second - why in the name of all that is holy are people so reluctant to believe that food could cause IBS when people can have such violent reactions to it? Surely if someone can risk death just be eating a peanut it's not that much of an imagination leap to say that some IBS symptoms may be caused by food intolerance.

There are many people who do find this hard to accept, however (mainly distant aunties who are trying to make us eat something like pizza because "a little bit won't hurt us, don't be silly").

I suppose it's because we need food to live, and so we think of it as a life-giving bounty rather than something that can harm us. But it clearly can harm us, so maybe our attitudes need to change.