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Case 1

Past

I had no previous history of allergies. In fact I blieved that I would be one of the few people without allergies. I must admit I regarded allergies more or less as a modern fashion without much substance. For all my life I was not really into sports. After I had quit working at the age of 60, however, I started jogging and made continuous progress. At age 62 I did run my first slow halfmarathon.

Incidents

At age 63 I exerienced an itching of my chest and body during one of my regular 45 minutes jogging exercises. I looked under my shirt and saw that my body was widely covered with swollen pustules. I returned home, had a shower and the symptoms slowly disappeared. A doctor diagnosed Urtikaria. She said that Urtikaria could have thousands of causes. She asked which medicine I took and came to the conclusion that Ramipril, which I regularly use for blood pressure regulation, is the probable cause. My specialist doctor regarded this as highly unlikely but agreed to change to another prescription drug. As far as I was concerned things were settled.

Some months later I spent a few weeks vacationing at the Canary Islands. One day I went diving, then had a nice spaghetti dinner at an Italian restaurant and decided to go jogging an hour later at around sunset. After having run for about 45 minutes I thought that my lips would swell a little, but was not sure. I also felt that my chest and trunk and arms were itching. A few minutes later I became dizzy, did rest a little bit, started jogging again, felt dizzy again and became unconscious. Two ladies found me and told me that I had been unconcsious for a few minutes. They had called an ambulance which - unfortunately - took almost one hour to pick me up. At the hospital they checked my heart and found nothing. I signed out and walked home in the dark assuming that I had just overloaded my physical capacity on that day.

A few days later I had another Urtikaria attack during jogging after having eaten a little bread snack for breakfast. I immediately stopped running that day, but did not give up jogging.

A few weeks later I again became unconscious at my home right after jogging. I was there on my own and regained consciousness after a few minutes, weak and shaky. I called no ambulance but slowly recovered on my own. Today I know that I had experienced a life threatening anaphylactic shock a second time. Only after this event I connected all incidents and decided to go to a special allergy clinic in Berlin.

Diagnosis

I went to the allergy section of the Charite University Clinic in Berlin. A doctor inquired closely about eating before the jogging incidents and very early formed the hypothesis that I was suffering from WDEIA. A blood test validated her hypothesis. A brick allergy test conformed, although it indicated other allergies that I had never experienced like apples and carrots.

I then got an advisory consultation on food, especially on wheat. I from now on need to avoid wheat in any form. Since my reaction to wheat is very severe they advised against only pausing the intake of wheat some hours before or after sports. They strongly argued in favour of no wheat at all. I would also be on the safe side, if I avoid Gluten.

I also received an emergeny kit just in case II should experience into another anphylactic shock.

Handling

Since then I do not eat any product that contains wheat. I regularly engage in sports, jogging, biking etc. There are no other restrictons except in terms of eating. But I got used to it pretty well. And I started baking my own wheat free bread.

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