Fear of eating and anaphylaxis! Please help

[lobbie]

Ok, so just a little bit of background; I've been having a very stressful 3-4 months, just one thing after the other. I had what I suspect was covid back in April which made me have some fatigue even after recovering. I was feeling really stressed about this so spent a lot of time on reddit reading about other "covid longhaulers". That's where I learned about the terms MCAS and histamine intolerance. I was pretty much fixated on reading about other peoples experiences with covid and spent hours on reddit which I now realize was probably really bad for my mental health and health anxiety.


Then it all started around 2 months ago. Some days after eating dinner I would experience a pretty fast pulse that would trigger my anxiety. Sometimes it went away rather quickly and other times it sticked around for an hour or more.

I continued living my pretty stressful life (problems with partner, problems with parents + health anxiety on top of that) and would get more and more moments of heightened anxiety until I got a panic attack while working. I called a friend who took me to the ER but by the time I got there I had calmed down a lot. They just took an ECG, said I was fine and sent me home. I still felt pretty on edge after this experience though so when I was gonna eat dinner after coming back home I immediately felt nauseous and could just eat a few bites. About a week after that I got another panic attack like 30 min after eating a hamburger and sort of convinced myself I was allergic. (I got this idea because I felt it like I had a hard time breathing when in reality I just had a burp stuck in my throat...).

And that's when I started fearing food and eating. I have high anxiety pretty much all day with various symptoms and sometimes get episodes of increased anxiety out of nowhere where I get heat flushes and start sweating. I barely have any appetite at all and struggle to eat just one "normal" meal per day, (the rest of the time I'm just drinking protein shakes or snacking). This is really stressing me out as I'm already pretty slim and can't really afford to lose weight.

Basically I react 2 ways to food; Either I feel nauseous even before starting to eat which makes it very difficult to chew and swallow the food, or I feel fine but nervous and then after eating almost immediately get anxiety symptoms which make me believe it's an allergic reaction and I'm getting anaphylaxis. (I should note that I've never been allergic or had an allergic reaction to anything previously). This has made me hyper aware to every sensation I feel when I eat and for basically an hour after.

For example, today I had bought a new protein bar that I hadn't tried before. Dark chocolate flavor. I felt hungry but also a bit nervous whether I would be able to eat it or not (because of suddenly getting nausea). I start chewing and swallowing and to my surprise it works just fine. I take a few bites and put it away and almost immediately I feel the anxiety creeping in. I start feeling hot with prickling skin behind my neck and feel weird in my throat. I freak out thinking I've developed an allergy to dark chocolate. A little while pass and I start feeling better so I take another small bite. Cue anxiety again, sweating etc. I now decide to wait for a while and then later take a teeny tiny bite and this time no anxiety. I continue to take small bites until I've eaten all of it.

Of course I realize logically that an allergy doesn't work like this, but it seems even if I just have a tiny little worry about the food I'm gonna eat I'll have some symptoms either during or after eating :weep:

I'm waiting for meeting with a psychologist but unfortunately they are closed for another month (most business in here close down between june-august) so I'm just wondering if anyone else experienced something like this and how you got out it? It basically feels like I developed a phobia to eating but it's not like a phobia of spiders where I can just avoid it. I have to eat every day but it's really triggering and feels like I can't just relax and enjoy a meal anymore.

[Kitkat99]

I feel for you I’m going through similar. I have always had a fear of allergic reactions but I’m scared to eat now as it raises my heart rate (having heart fears) which then causes panic and I can’t get it down for like an hour. I have to take a sip of drink with every bite of food now and force it down it’s difficult and I’m not eating as much as I should be. I have also had the stuck burp thing in the past and freaked out.

Thing is we gotta eat and you can even have allergic reactions to things that aren’t food so with that logic you just as well avoid everything which you can’t. I know you’re worried about becoming allergic to things but maybe just stick with “comfort foods” for now things that are easy to eat and you can get down easily but also you enjoy and try eating smaller meals more regularly so you aren’t there for ages battling with it? That’s what I do, dinners always the worse as it’s a big meal normally.

[ErinKC]

I'm so sorry you're going through this! I went through a similar fear during the height of my postpartum anxiety. It was over christmas time and I was putting away our tree. At the same time I was eating cranberry walnut bread that my mom had brought over. At one point I started to get really itchy and I looked down and had a small hive on my arm. I'm extremely allergic to dust and immediately assumed it was because I must have scratched myself with a dusty branch of the christmas tree (it was a fake one). But, then my mom - the origin of my anxiety! - suggested to me "you're not allergic to the walnuts are you?" Now, I've NEVER had a food allergy. At this point I was 31 years old. But, I was also in the throws are absolutely debilitating anxiety that had started 7 months earlier when my daughter was born. That one comment penetrated my anxious mind and spiraled over the next months to a paralyzing fear of most foods. I ended up going for allergy testing for both walnuts and cranberries -- of course I wasn't allergic to either -- but the fear stayed with me for a long time after that. Eventually, as I realized I wasn't having reactions to anything it passed. But, it was a really hard one because a tight throat is SUCH and easy psychosomatic symptom to bring on! And, I admit that I still avoid cranberries (9 years later) even though I know in my rational mind I'm not allergic to them. But, we didn't do an eating challenge with them at the allergist (just the skin test). And, I know I've accidentally eating cranberries several times with not problem, but for some reason that one stuck with me even though my anxiety is otherwise pretty well under control now.

I will also say that I just had covid for the second time in May and I had weird things like increased heart rate at random times and random sweating for a good while after. So, it's more likely it has to do with that than an allergy. All that passed over time.