Whoops, I appear to be more allergic to prawns than I thought I was

[theozzardofwiz]

Just had more prawns than my usual "occasional one" in tea - about a dozen. I promptly came out in a beautiful rash from my scalp to my groin, plus upper arms. It's going down now, luckily, and I had none of the swollen tongue / shortness of breath or other really icky symptoms that would have sent me diving for the phone

Comments

[dodgyjon]

Another possibility is that the prawns were slightly off. Histidine can be converted to Histamine during the decomposition process and that can give similar signs.

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/labeti/allerg/fispoie.shtml has more information - although they suggest that there are only certain types of (proper) fish which are likely to cause a problem. Avoiding seafood might be the safer choice.

Glad you're feeling better.

[dodgyjon]

One thing that that does point out is that "seafood" is a rather artificial classification; if you have an allergy to prawns you might well have a similar one to shrimp, crab, lobster or woodlice (mmm, crunchy) but might be fine with actual fish or molluscs. You'd probably be fine with "crabsticks" too, as they're actually normally made of fish rather than crustacean (albeit quite possibly with cochineal (from insects) as a food colouring)

[technochapel]

Ewww! (in a word)