How to get rid of my fruit allergies?

Why would someone suddenly develop allergies to foods they've been eating for their whole lives?

• Early this year, around January, my mom had an allergic reaction to peanut butter or toast. The thing is, she's been eating the combination since she was little with not so much as a problem. At the time I was at away at college but she described to me her lip swelling, knots appearing on her legs or arms and her arms itching like crazy. Slowly, she's begun to find out she's become allergic to several foods, all in what seems like an overnight transition. She's now allergic to any kind of nuts (i.e. peanuts, pine nuts, hazel nuts, cashews, walnuts, chest nuts, peanut oil, etc.), soybeans (and other products processed from the soybean) and any other type of bean, dairy products (milk, cheese, butter, etc.), and most products that have gluten (bread, cereal, most breaded foods) and enriched flour. She's also allergic to some ingredient in Big K grape soda, Sunny D, Orange Juice, Apple Jelly from Walmart and Fruit Punch from Tropicana. There are some exceptions though. She can eat all of the food at Red Lobster with no problem. She couldn't drink soy or almond milk, but she can drink rice milk, in small doses. She can have things with margarine incorporated, so she can eat cakes and Pillsbury oatmeal cookies. She can drink the Peach Orchard punch from Tropicana as well as the Apple Harvest punch. It's just kind of strange for someone to be able to have any of these foods just 8 hours before, then the next time she ate peanut butter and toast, she has a reaction. She's been to allergist and they don't know why this is happening. She plans on getting a skin test so she can figure out everything she is allergic too. She's become really frustrated and scared to eat sometimes. I ended up having to move back to my hometown and attend a closer university so I could make sure she's alright. My theory is that it has something to do with her getting older. She recently turned 54 earlier this month, but the thing is no one in her family has had any of these allergies. She has one older brother and 4 younger siblings and none of them have allergies. I don't have any of these allergies either, but it does raise a slight air of concern in the back of my mind that I may develop these allergies when I get older.

• Answer:

  anyone at any age can develop allergies to stuff they ate all their life I used to be able to eat peanut butter & nuts..one day I had a jar of peanut butter,I opened it and went into a nasty reaction I went to my allergist,he told me the body's immune system can only handle so much of an IeG/allergen in some people .Then the immune system can't handle it anymore..so the immune system sends out histamines to rid the body of IeGs anyway it can( hives, swelling when the immune system can't keep up,cramps, diarrhea,violent vomiting etc) Benadryl is the only thing that helps slow the histamines down He also told me that the IeGs can build up in your body,then once it has too many it can set the immune system into reactions He described it to my son who has severe allergies to like this: take a bowl that hows a certain amount of fluids. add a cup of water,it holds it add another cup of water,it holds it add a cup of orange juice,the bowl over flows. I was the only one of 5 kids with severe allergies.Now my brothers are all starting to have reactions to things that never bothered them before My 25 yr old niece developed nasty reactions to shellfish & sulfur( in wines etc as a preservative) She was out to dinner the night before & had both without any problems.The next night she had one bite of lobster & a sip of wine,she instantly had hives,eyes facial , throat swelling difficulty breathing & ended up in the ER. later her dr did a simple blood test that showed all her allergies & how bad she might react RAST tests can be very dangerous if she has any severe reactions to anything..A blood test is much safer make sure she doesn't take any benadryl 72 hours prior to testing or it will mess the results up