I owe my life to Coke!

Damn skippy! Take THAT health Nazis! "Ohhh but soda is sooooo bad for you! It stunts your growth and gives you wrinkles!" yeah whatever. I'm 5'9, so anything it wants to stunt I am very much okay with.

Regardless, I have a brand new food allergy. As in, I was eating some Chewy SweetTarts (From the Wonderful World of Wonka! What will they think of next?) and drinking a regular Coke, minding my own business and suddenly my throat seized up, my neck was itching and I couldn't breathe through my mouth. My initial reaction was "shit! Did I inhale some dust or something?" since I'm incredibly allergic to cats and dust, if I managed to get some stirred up and inhaled it, I'd be itching all over and making this cool little whistle when I breathed.

But no, wait, my eyes didn't itch and my nose was clear. I could breathe through my nose just not my mouth. Then I started choking and I could kind of feel little bits of candy shell. This is what we in the industry call Very Bad because I had no allergy meds in the house and my cell phone battery was dead. At this point if it gets worse, my best bet is to stumble out my front door and bang on the door across the breezeway and pray somebody is home and finds me before I die. Not great odds. Then sudenly, as though my uvula was Moses reincarnated, my throat opened. I could actually feel it relaxing.

Well, that was scary.

So I jump over to a forum I frequent and ask some food allergy questions, omitting my copious Coke (the -a Cola, not the -aine) consumption prior to the throat-spasm. A few people reply discussing friends and relatives who had the same type of thing happen and they had been given coffee or tea because the caffeine made it relax.

I'm thinking, no effing way. No way do I owe my life to a soft drink. So I popped online. Caffeine releases theophylline. Theophylline is a low-level anti-asthma drug which prevents bronchial tubes closing.

Dr. William Walsh connected anxiety and severe allergic reactions. Dr.Walsh maintains that allergic anxiety stems from a choking sense, and loss of air; not a psychological deficit (24). Caffeine converts into many byproducts, including theophylline. Theophylline keeps the bronchial tubes open. Allergic individuals are less likely to suffer respiratory collapse, during an anaphylactic reaction.

Source: CAFFEINE ALLERGY: Past Disorder or Present Epidemic?

Dude, I TOTALLY owe my life to a soft drink. That passage I just quoted? From an article on the dangers of caffeine. Not exactly the kind of source that's going to be telling me to drink more soda.

So yeah, I hopped on down to the CVS and bought some Dye-Free Benadryl to celebrate and tomorrow I'll call around to a few doctors and buy a case of soda from work until I can get an appointment.

So far, my allergens are most likely Red 40, coconut oil, or egg protein. There's also the outside chance it's related to Carmine, because these were Wonka candies and Wonka uses carmine in most of its products.

Until then, I'm going to be eating a lot of rice and chicken just to be on the safe side.