Salicylate Allergy? Avoid Blackcurrants

We went over to a friend's for dinner over the weekend - and we tried a new drink, called Ribena. It is blackcurrant juice - and it's delicious! 

I had one large glass mixed with water.

Now, with anything new, I always read the ingredients and the label. I made sure there was no grapefruit juice, no aniseed of any kind, no caffeine, nothing that jumped out as potentially problematic. 

The next two days I spent itching. Lots and lots of itching. Followed by hives. 

So we went through every single thing we did, every type of environmental exposure, every food ingested, every situational factors - only two stood out, and one in particular. 

So I decided to look up the ingredients of that drink again. Nothing alarming came up. 

I then searched 'blackcurrant allergy' and there it was, the title that caught my attention: "Foods High in Salicylates". 

So I checked out that list. 

I had no idea so many foods had naturally occurring salicylates (the basis for a lot of medications - ex: Aspirin, skin care for acne, topical treatments, etc...). 

I am very allergic to salicylates. 

Salicylates, salicylic acid, acetyl-salicylic acid, 5-acetyl-salicylic-acid - they all cause problems. 

ProActive Skin Care: for most people, is amazing for acne. That's because salicylates are amazing for acne. For me, it cause hives, which essentially just looks like acne on my face anyways. 

Aspirin: severe hives

Pentasa & Salofalk (5-acetyl-salicylic-acid): medications used to help with Inflammatory Bowel Disease - caused Pancreatitis... every time. 

I am very allergic to salicylates. 

No more blackcurrant juice for me! 

The more you know. 

Accidental Caffeine

Soooooo

I have an allergy to caffeine. I found this out several years ago, with an unfortunate throat swell and trip to the Emergency Room. If I have chocolate I will always develop hives, though minimal, and I require extra anti-histamines (in addition to my daily antihistamine) to eat a larger portion.
It's not a big deal. Eliminating coffee from my diet was a bit of a shock, but I got used to it fairly quickly. On days when I am low on energy or excessively tired I definitely wish I could have some coffee now and then, but otherwise I don't think of it too much.
If you're not too careful, however, caffeine can be difficult to avoid. In addition to chocolate, desserts, coffee shops, teas, caffeine is also found in a ton of skincare products. The product loses its efficacy when you break out in hives from it...

I have made mistakes in the past. I have ordered a steamed milk and gotten a latte and figured it out a little late, I have forgotten my daily antihistamine and had a little too much chocolate, I have accidentally consumed a dessert with a little coffee in it... I am very lucky that the allergy does not immediately result in anaphylaxis.

Because this allergy appears to be relatively uncommon, I have never been 100% confident in what the allergy actually is. Is it to the coffee bean? Is it to cocoa? Is it tea leaves? Or is it any form of caffeine?

Turns out - it is caffeine itself. In any form.

Today I stopped at my favourite French bakery for some French macarons. They have this Lavender Lemonade that I have had several times before, but it was not packaged the same. Usually it is in a sealed bottle with the ingredients listed right on the packaging. Today, however, they had it displayed in this beautiful beverage dispenser. Having had it lots of times and being in a bit of a hurry to get home, I got my stuff and left. I had a couple of sips on the road, but saved most of it for at home. When I got home, however, I felt off.
I didn't even get 1/4 of the way through it before realizing that it wasn't their regular drink. They must have added some of the tea that they sell there. (They sell a bunch of different kinds of tea - I even have some of their herbal teas).
It's not a scary reaction. I caught it in time, took a Benadryl, and it won't turn into anything even remotely emergent.

It's my own fault. Although I had previously had it several times, without the original packaging and with the different presentation, I should have asked to make sure that it was their original drink.

But here's the bright side - now I know, for absolute certain, that it is caffeine itself in any form that causes a reaction. From natural sources to synthetic variations, I react to caffeine in any form.

Oh and I also had to parallel park on the left side of the road on a one-way street today. That's just an added accomplishment to my oops moment.