Oral Allergy Syndrome - allergic to fresh fruits

Who else suffers from Oral Allergy Syndrome? I developed an allergy to fresh fruits like apples, pears, peaches, kiwi, cherries, plums, and almonds when I was in my early teens - I had always been able to eat them up until that point. I have repeatedly mentioned it to doctors who were stumped; they speculated that it could be the pesticides, but I tried organic and still had a reaction. I even had a nutritionist tell me it was an allergy to the pollen. If the fruit is cooked, canned, or frozen I’ve always been able to eat it without a problem, the exception being almonds which I’ve had to cut out of my diet completely.

I recently stumbled onto Oral Allergy Syndrome and apparently this is a recognized allergy now! It turns out my body recognizes the proteins in these fruits as birch pollen which I must be allergic to; cooking/canning/freezing breaks down these proteins so that I can eat them without a reaction. What’s interesting, is that I’m finding I CAN eat the fresh fruits out of season, like I’ve been able to eat apples the past couple of weeks and haven’t experienced any reaction.

I’m just curious how many other folks suffer from this. Or maybe you do but like me you never knew what it was or why!

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