The lolly that led to anaphylaxis

No-one expects a sugar-laden lolly to contain egg as an ingredient. It’s a lesson Hope learnt the hard way 

Living with multiple food allergies for as long as she can remember, Hope has experienced anaphylaxis six times in her life. One of her earliest memories is having anaphylaxis as a four-year-old after eating a piece of cheese that, unbeknownst to her father, contained egg, which she’s severely allergic to. 

“Out of all my allergies, it was always egg that was my most concerning and life-threatening,” she tells us. 

It was trace amounts of egg in another unlikely source that led to her most recent anaphylaxis episode, in the middle of a shift at work. 

When her manager passed around a jar full of assorted lollies for an afternoon sugar hit, Hope grabbed one just like everybody else. “It was just a lolly, so I didn’t really think about it,” she says. Shortly after, she began to experience a tingling sensation in her mouth and felt dizzy and light-headed.  

Once the stomach pain hit, she knew for certain that she was having an allergic reaction. “Stomach pain is always a big indicator for me,” she explains. She fished the lolly packet out of the bin to read the ingredients list, and her heart dropped when she saw the word ‘egg’.  Hope quickly told her manager what was happening and another team member ran back to Hope’s locker to retrieve her adrenaline device. Another colleague called her mum, who came to pick her up and took her to hospital. On the way, her condition worsening and her throat tightening, Hope gave herself her EpiPen®. 

Hope says the experience reinforced for her that every reaction can be different. “I think there’s a common misconception that you have to be basically not breathing for it to be anaphylaxis,” she says. She now knows that acting fast and not delaying administering adrenaline is crucial. 

Since connecting with other people with severe allergies at Allergy 250K camps, Hope feels that much more confident in recognising the signs of anaphylaxis and knowing how to act. “Until that point I’d never actually met anyone else who needed to carry an EpiPen,’ she recalls. “I made lifelong friends at my first camp and it felt like the best thing I’d ever done, and it’s still the best thing I’ve ever done.”