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Hello All,
I am counsellor with over 12 years experience specializing in parenting, families, youth and mental health. I answer questions in a blunt and straightforward way so if you are looking for coddling or really touchy feely type advice thats not me I provide real solutions for your problems and concrete suggestions in other words I tell you the plain truth I don't sugarcoat.

I am really worried these days with the easy access to the internet and all the false information that is out there and the fact that people believe it!! So please ask first. I don't claim to have all the answers but I can claim that NOTHING will shock me you can try though :)

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advice

In the past month and a half, sometimes when my fiance eats pizza, his lips swell up to about 3 times their normal size a few hours afterwards. It starts in one corner on one lip and slowly travels all the way around until everything is completely swollen. He says that it feels kind of numb. We get Benadryl and he takes 2, but it doesn't seem to help at all. It's just his lips. He's never had any problems like this in the past and we're not getting pizza from new places or anything. I know he needs to see a doctor about it, that's not what I'm asking. I'm just really interested in how this could have happened. Does anybody have any ideas about what could be causing this? Are they putting some kind of new ingredient or spice in pizza now? Could he have developed an allergy to something at age 21? Has anything like this happened to anyone before? Thanks.

Ok yes it could be an allergy, they develop at all ages. The procedure to test for allergies is basically going to an allergist and he / she places needles with common / possible allergens and looks for a reaction. This is pretty much painless and depending on the severity of the allergy he can either avoid it or if it is to an extremely common product i.e. nuts he could be given an EPI-Pen which is Adrenalin and if he consummes what he is allergic to and has a severe reaction he gives himself the shot. There are many things that he could be allergic to which could be in both pizza and cheeseburgers, i.e. garlic it is in most pizzas as well as in ketchup. Also there are allergies to wheat, glucose ect... If this is happening more frequently he should try to avoid known sources of the swelling and get an appointment with an allergist as soon as he can.

Hope this helps.
S

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