A Massachusetts woman says she is “allergic to everything” and lives on a diet of oatmeal and hypoallergenic infant formula but is still able to make the best of it and have a happy holiday season.
Caroline Cray, 24, first had an allergic reaction to ice cream in September 2017, going into anaphylactic shock, she told the news agency SWNS.
She soon after had similar reactions to bread and pizza, then had a serious reaction after eating rice and beans and spent 12 days in an intensive care unit.
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Initially, doctors were hopeful it would go away.
“In the fall [of 2017], when I was having the repeated shocks, my allergist and ER doctors were under the assumption that my reactions would only last a few months,” she told SWNS.
The doctors put her on antihistamine drugs and referred her to a specialist, she said.
The reactions did not go away, something she said was “really discouraging.”
“Every day I was wondering if I was going to end up in the hospital, I had a really tight throat and I was itchy and wheezing,” she said.
After nearly a year of tests, Cray was diagnosed with mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), a rare chronic illness, in May 2018. MCAS causes repeated severe allergic reaction symptoms, she told SWNS.
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Getting a diagnosis was emotional, she said, but also “validating.”
“I am a very cut and dry person, but me and my mum, Julie, 59, were both crying,” she said. “It was validating that someone was finally like, ‘This is a chronic illness, and we need to treat it as one.'”
She felt a mixture of relief that her condition had a name, while grappling with thought of, “Oh God, I will live with this the rest of my life.'”
Six years after her diagnosis, she can only eat two things — oatmeal and specialized infant formula.
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“I am at the point where my diet is only EleCare and oatmeal,” she said, referring to a specific brand of hypoallergenic infant formula.
“I will have that for three meals a day, and I only eat three times a day as I have to self-medicate beforehand,” she said, adding it is “really tough.”
Additionally, Cray takes a host of medications, including some taken daily, weekly and semi-monthly.
Despite her food limitations and limited diet, Cray tries to act as normally as possible, and that includes the holidays.
“I don’t rule myself out of things though,” she told SWNS, adding she joins her family for dinner at night.
“I will go out for meals, but I bring my own food. And I will go for nights out and take a water bottle,” she said, adding she is “always the designated driver” and is able to “fill people in on what has happened the night before.
“I have turned that into one of my favorite things,” Cray told SWNS. “I tell my friends I get secondhand drunk from them.”
“I will go out for meals, but I bring my own food. And I will go for nights out and take a water bottle.”
To better accommodate her condition, Cray hosts Thanksgiving and Christmas at her own home.
“In the first couple of years of my diagnosis, I didn’t want to eat in front of anyone else,” she said.
“It is certainly hard because food is central to the holiday season, but there are a lot of factors that make me feel included in the ritual of Christmas.”
Now, Cray is hopeful she will be able to expand her diet beyond oatmeal and infant formula.
“This is my fifth year of being on the oatmeal diet, and it is hard,” she told SWNS. “I would be lying if I said I don’t struggle because I do.
“I am currently meeting with my MCAS therapist to try (trying) different foods,” she said. But, so far, nothing has worked, noting she has attempted to eat chicken, lamb, sweet potato and broccoli.
“I will try single foods one by one so if I have a reaction we know exactly what it is to,” she said.
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