I am Heather Braverman; I'm 19; I'm from New Jersey and I've had allergies pretty much my entire life.
I was diagnosed when I was two years old.
Something that was always difficult growing up was going to a birthday party and everybody gets a slice after you sing "Happy Birthday." And that just was never a thing for me.
There's no light switch when you have food allergies.
It's always on. It wasn't just an eating situation; it was everywhere I turned.
Going to a friend's house. You just have to learn to speak up and realize that if you don't then no one else will do it for you.
It can be a matter of life or death.
The night that I was hospitalized... I think it was a Friday night.
My best friend Amanda, we had a plan. We said, "Let's go out for a nice girls' dinner."
When the waiter came over, the first thing we said was, "Please note my friend and I, we both have very severe food allergies."
"So please let the chef know and please make sure there's no cross contact or anything that we order has nuts."
And she said, "Ok, great. I will make sure that's all taken care of and it should be out in a few minutes."
A few minutes later the tuna tartar comes out.
Within seconds, my stomach started hurting like it has never hurt in my life.
So I texted my mom and she said, "Take the antihistamine medication that you have with you and call an ambulance right away."
Heather was in the ambulance at the time and I said, "Heather, don't freak out, but it was peanut sauce."
When you hear that, psychologically, your heart starts racing and pounding.
Because you know what that means.
Finally, I got into a hospital room. The pain was really uncontrollable.
So they just gave me, through an IV, antihistamine and a lot of nausea medication.
And then, a few minutes later I said, "I think my throat is closing."
They, eventually, when I said that, gave me the epinephrine.
My hands were shaking, I couldn't even text my mom.
But immediately all my symptoms went away.
It can be tricky to distinguish when epinephrine is needed or not.
Some of the mild symptoms in the beginning might just be an itchy mouth or some nausea.
And you might not be reaching for the epinephrine for that in all cases.
But if things start to progress so it's more than just a little hive, a little mouth itch or some stomach discomfort...
You'd want to be thinking about using the epinephrine
It was really, really scary.
And you don't think it can happen to you.
I hadn't had a reaction since I was 2 years old. I was 18.
16 years of life without a reaction.
After this happened, I had a really thorough conversation with Dr. Sicherer.
And if I had known that it was the appropriate time to use epinephrine, I would have done it in 5 seconds.
I think it's very important to discuss with your allergist exactly what to do in case of an allergic reaction or anaphylaxis.
You don't want to leave this up to assumptions.
You want to make sure you go through and rehearse different situations where you would use epinephrine and how to activate emergency services.
The allergist might provide a written emergency plan that describes all of the details of what to do in the event of allergic symptoms.
It's also important to go over that verbally. Have a discussion.
Talk about scenarios, rehearse situations so that you feel really comfortable about when you would use the medications and what you would do in an emergency.
It alarms me if I hear people say, "I'm supposed to wait until I can't breathe or I'm starting to pass out."
No. You're supposed to use the epinephrine early in an allergic reaction.
You want to get that medicine in when there's time that it can get circulated to get to your lungs and throughout your system to help you in an allergic reaction.
My reaction was a wakeup call to everything that I thought I knew about what it meant to have a reaction.
This is a wakeup call because I learned that "This is the moment to use epinephrine."
There's no wait time. There's no second guessing.
You have to listen to your body and how you're feeling and realize, "This is serious and this is happening."
So I need to respond to it with the necessary actions.
I was able to learn, "This is what is necessary."
And it really woke me up and shocked me.
But I'm grateful that now I know what I have to do.