?HOW can you go on living??

This is the most hysterical but not uncommon reaction I get when people find out I?m allergic to shrimp. Their eyes widen and you can almost see the gears moving in their head, trying to imagine a life without these crafty crustaceans.

I would often just smile and say that I prefer living. After all, I am outnumbered by shrimp in this world by at least several billion to one. I wave the white flag right here and now. When I was younger, I went through a stage when I envied my friends who could scarf down camaron rebosado without worry?but I?ve gotten over that. A bad allergic reaction will do that to you.

I had my worst attack when I was in college. At a party, I munched on a couple of pieces of okoy (shrimp fritters) right before I headed home, not knowing they actually had shrimp hidden within their folds. About 15 minutes later, I was running a temperature and my skin started to itch all over.

By the time I got home, I ran straight for the couch and could not get up. Hives began to appear on my skin and my face started to swell. I had never felt anything like it. I began sweating like anything. There is a scene in the movie ?Hitch,? where Will Smith suffers an allergic reaction and, I swear, it really does look like that, turning one into a mini-me version of The Elephant Man.

Probably the worst effect was the difficulty in breathing. I now know that food allergies happen when our bodies react badly to a specific protein found in whatever it is we?re eating. It causes all of those symptoms I?m talking about, but the most dangerous one is anaphylaxis when, among others, you have trouble breathing and, if left untreated, can be deadly.

Luckily, a good dose of antihistamine saved me then, so now I always try to have them on me at all times. It has become second nature to me, lugging around medication just in case I need it. Other people use an epi pen, a small device that plugs epinephrine into your system in a jiffy. Epinephrine is a hormone, naturally released by the adrenalin gland, that signals the heart to pump harder, thus increasing blood pressure and opening airways in the lungs, as a way of counteracting an allergy attack.

Food allergies are common among children, though most outgrow them. But other people don?t, and they have to be very careful about what they eat or come into contact with. Allergies change lives; but it?s better than losing lives. Anaphylactic shock is such a dangerous and sometimes mystifying event that it is a favorite ploy on procedural shows like ?CSI: Crime Scene Investigation? and ?House, M.D.? It?s like having our own personal form of Kryptonite.

Perhaps the most terrifying allergen is peanuts, something that is now quite prevalent among young children. The problem with peanut allergies is two-fold. First, peanuts are often mixed into other dishes and go undetected. Second, it only takes a little to cause a lot of damage. Parents have to be especially vigilant, monitoring what exactly goes into what their kids are eating.

Admittedly, dealing with an allergy turns people into food Nazis. We often bug whoever?s cooking about the complete list of ingredients that go into what?s about to go into our systems. All of the sudden, we become suspicious of every dish. It?s inconvenient, but necessary.

A common suggestion is to just eat lots of the allergen so the body will simply get used to it. But this sounds largely apocryphal, and I shudder to think what effect such a reckless exercise would have on a human body when just a microscopic amount could lead to the body?s version of the apocalypse.

Some of us learn to live with it. I went to school with a girl who was allergic to both chocolate and chicken, which could really drive other people crazy. But she dealt with her allergies matter-of-factly, always armed with her medicine and occasionally popping her pills if she wanted a bite of Hersheys or KFC. Smart girl.

As for me, I got used to not eating shrimp, period. I also steer away from shellfish and most forms of seafood. Just imagining the shrimp crawling on all their legs towards me already feels like an invasion from another planet.

But my going without them becomes an almost affirmative action: I want to live, so I will go without pancit canton or yang chow fried rice. Like many things in life, it?s a compromise that needs constant reminders.

Allergy sufferers of the world, raise your epi pens to our cause! Every day without the terror of tempura or sinister scampi is a day when we can savor and celebrate all the other ingredients we can taste to the fullest.