An Allergic Reaction

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! Today I’m joining in with the Writer’s Workshop. One of the prompts is to write about an experience of having an allergic reaction.

I have never had very strong allergic reactions to anything. However, the fact that I would not classify my allergic reactions as strong, is probably because I haven’t fully figured them out.

I am allergic to nickel. That is, that’s what my parents have always told me. I never knew how to recognize an allergic reaction though and, with the fact that it can take some time for your body to react to nickel, even if I knew I had an allergic reaction, I wouldn’t always be sure of the cause.

When I was 15, I got earrings. After the little studs you wear for the first six weeks, I immediately switched to long, heavy, silver rings I got from my mother. No-one had told me not to wear heavy earrings for the first year. Or that silver earrings, especially those made back in the day, could contain nickel.

My earlobes started getting inflamed pretty soon, but I didn’t actually realize this was abnormal. It could’ve been the nickel, but I also constantly fidgeted with my earrings, thereby touching my pierced ears.

After a few months of wearing all sorts of, mostly quite heavy, earrings, I was wise enough to give up. For over two decades.

And then, the whole saga started over. I got new studs put in, because my old earring holes had long formed scar tissue. This time, I googled what to wear and not to wear while getting used to earrings. I only wore small studs.

However, I was unable to make sure that my earrings didn’t contain nickel. In the EU, nickel is no longer allowed in jewelry, but no-one ever checks manufacturers for compliance.

I got silver studs that the vendor said were nickel-free. Though I was fine for a few months, my ears eventually started getting inflamed again. I tried ignoring the issue, believing it would get better over time. Which, if it’s truly my nickel allergy acting up, isn’t true. In fact, the opposite is true: an allergy keeps getting worse the more someone is exposed to the allergen.

Eventually, after several attempts wearing various studs, I gave up. And this time, I’m hopefully not going to ignore my body again and have another go. Whether it was my nickel allergy acting up or I was just touching my ears too much, we’ll never know. Now I’ll just wear necklaces and bracelets, so that when I fidget with them, I’m not essentially touching a wound.

12 thoughts on “An Allergic Reaction”

  1. As someone with severe food allergies and well as pharmaceutical ones I have had bad reactions. They are far from pleasant. I have to watch the food I eat at all times. Traces of peanuts on a warning label means I have to put it back. The biggest dangers I face are when a package isn’t labelled or is mislabeled or I take a chance and eat at a buffet where inconsiderate people take spoons from one dish and use them in others.

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  2. I so remember having a similar reaction many years ago and my two daughters did as well with ear piercings. After the piercings healed and pure gold earrings were work, the issue was with the earring backs which were not pure gold. The infections were so annoying.

    The other issue was with moving from studs to wires and the hole in the ear reacting to the change in the post/wire size.

    Like so many, I went through the “heavy earring” phase and how it affected my piercings. All this time later, all I wear are simple, graduated, diamond studs, three in one ear, four in the other, and that’s it!

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    1. It wasn’t. That being said, I didn’t realize initially how badly inflamed it was, since I have very sensitive, eczema-prone skin anyway so was used to itchiness.

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  4. I have been tested twice for allergies with “scratch tests” and both times I itched so bad! I am allergic to trees, grasses, ragweed and other weeds and also cats (of which I have three) but never have I had any serious reactions. The closest to a serious reaction was when I used eye drops with Sulfa in them and I got super dizzy.

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        1. True. The reason was the fact that I was wearing some type of brace on my left leg and it apparently caused an allergic reaction.

          My weekend was okay. Hope yours was good too.

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  5. In the world of elements, nickel isn’t really discussed too much, and it’s easy to think that it’s relatively harmless. Then you hear something like this and think “hmmm.. maybe it’s not as harmless as I thought.”

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