As far as I know, my only true allergy is the medication Lisinopril. Out of an abundance of caution, my physician has instructed me to avoid all ACE-inhibitors because they are chemically similar to one another. Lisinipril causes me to develop anaphylaxis.

I had been taking Lisinopril for about two years when I first had a reaction to it. Yes, two years. A small percentage of the population can develop an allergy to Lisinopril up to 5 years after first exposure. Lucky me, I'm in that small percentage, and naturally, my reaction to it happened when I was away from home at a rock festival in Wisconsin.

After the first night of entertainment, a Thursday night, was drawing to a close, I began to wonder, "when the hell did I bite my tongue?" Usually, when one bites one's tongue, one remembers doing it. The right edge of my tongue felt like I had bitten it, but I could not remember having done so. I crawled into my tent in the concert grounds campsite, shrugged it off, and went to sleep. I woke up about an hour or so later and it immediately became abundantly clear what was going on -- my tongue was swelling up, and it felt like my throat might be also. So I nudged my wife awake (we were still together at the time) . . .

She: What do you want?!?

Me: I need your help. My tongue is swelling up.

She: Wha, wha, what?!?

Me: My tongue is swelling up!!

She: What do you want me to do about it?

Me: TAKE ME TO THE MEDICS!!

I had never had such a reaction, and had no idea what to expect next. I just knew something was very, very wrong so I didn't want to try to drive myself over to the medical tent.

Once we got to the concert grounds, however, the security guard standing on watch couldn't figure out what to do. The concert grounds were closed because all of the live music for the night had been over for a couple of hours -- however, the medical tent was inside the concert grounds. I presented with a dire medical emergency and this idiot can't figure out whether or not he should let me in!! It took him nearly 15 minutes to get in touch with whoever he thought he needed to speak with and get approval to let me in. As it turns out, that 15 minutes very nearly cost me my life.

At the medical tent, now about 2:00am, the medics knew exactly what was happening, administered some benadryl and some epinephrine, and summoned the on-side ambulance. Within a few minutes I was on my way to the hospital with the sirens blaring. However, the hospital was nearly 25 miles away!!

When I got to the hospital, I was so closed up that the emergency staff could not get a breathing tube into me. That is the last thing I remember until ...

... I woke up, unable to move because I was restrained. I was aware that I was not breathing on my own. I could not turn my head. I could not speak. I was on a ventilator, restrained so that I wouldn't pull on the apparatus.

As it turns out, the emergency staff had to perform an emergency tracheotomy in order to save my life. My pulse dropped to <20 bpm while they were preparing to do the tracheotomy so they were also administering CPR (minus the breathing assistance, since my airway was closed.)

So I'm lying there on a ventilator, and a nurse noticed that I had regained consciousness. Within a few minutes they removed the ventilator. My wife asked me how I was feeling . . .

Me: I'm fine. I have to get outta here!! I don't want to miss Korn tonight!!

She: Stephen, Korn was last night.

Me: No, Korn is tonight's headliner. Check the schedule. Friday night's headliner is Korn. Head is back with the band!! I don't want to miss that.

She: Stephen? Friday was yesterday. You were brought here to the hospital early yesterday morning. You've been out for about 40 hours or so. It's Saturday evening.

I would end up seeing no more of the rock festival, missing Saturday night as well as Sunday night. Complications to the tracheotomy developed, resulting in my being hospitalized a total of about two weeks. I was transferred from the original hospital to a "higher care" facility after the third day. It's the longest hospital stay I have ever endured.

Now, when I see Lisinopril I don't even want to touch the bottle. lol

I'm allergic to aspirin, penicillin, dust, cats and used to be allergic to dogs. I got a Samoyed about 10 years ago because is researched that they were good for people with allergies and after a year or two, I'm now fine with all dogs. I now have 1 Samoyed, 1 mini American Eskimo dog and 1 husky/shepherd rescue. No problems at all. And they all shed like a motherf*****

Bullets

Churches.

I am sooo luck to not suffer from any allergies. No foods, drugs, animals or pollen.

Tested for evironmental and food allergies. Had 21. Started 6 shots a week at home. Hurricane hit. Couldnt refrigerate vials so I had to start over. Went to a different doctor. Testing showed completely different things. Ecept fot dust mites...which is very common. Now I question everything about whether this real.

I had a dermatologist explain how some foods are horrible for acne. Peanuts are the worst for me, though when I say I'm allergic to peanuts, I have to qualify it. Also worth knowing, for anyone with that skin condition, the drug Accutane was a virtual cure for me.

The nickel that was once used in hospital bracelets . Handcuffs

Wheat. dairy. penicillin

Nickel, I cannot wear a watch even a leather strap if it has a chrome buckle

Peanuts. And idiots.