Cockroach Allergy

At the Modern Nose Clinic we intend to take a grassroots effort fixing medicine one idea at a time. One major reason why medicine is broken is because patients need to know more. They don't know more because medical knowledge is not accessible. We intend to make things accessible through this series that we call Nuggets of Knowledge. Enjoy!

Do not watch this video unless you actually have a cockroach allergy.

I'm serious people. We were trying to think of names for this video and we had considered - Hey Dr. Skarada, Why is My Food So Crunchy?" Yeah, don't watch this unless you really need to.

Okay, you're still watching. Let's take it from here.

You know for those of you who underwent allergy testing here, you will have seen some of our videos which we think is an important way to communicate. And I purposefully did not put the cockroach video in - unless you have a cockroach allergy. I personally like bugs - big deal. I think there's some cool stats here, so those of you who want to know that's great but the cockroach, if you're allergic to it and you're eating it in food, it'll cause problems.

You think it's a food allergy. It's not. It's a cockroach allergy.

So let's give you some stats.

Question number one:

How many bug bits do you eat each year?

Your choices:

A: None, I'm Vegetarian
B: Less than 100, they move too fast
C: 140,000 - Yum!
‍

Oh, I'm gonna get you too, another one bites the dust. Mm-hmm, another one bites the dust. Me, I like my cockroaches chocolate-dipped. That's what I'm talking about. And yet you're still watching cuz you just can't turn it off.

Mealworms and maggots and roaches, oh my! Yeah, they're found in everyday foods. Like what?

• chocolate
• coffee
• wheat
• grains
• beer (there's a lot of bug bits in beer)

Dr. Skarada, you're really starting to piss me off. You're making this out to be a joke and I'm really entirely grossed out. What are you gonna do about it? I get questions like that all the time. What are you gonna do about it?

Well, hmmm ... once we solve medicine, one idea at a time, then I'll write a letter to the FDA and we'll get this thing sorted out. In all seriousness though, the FDA is well aware. Put away your pencils. They're well aware and it is safe it's not like you're gonna die. Yes, you'll be grossed out, but it's our own fault. I warned you like over and over again and yet you're still here. So, just to let you know, it's just if you have allergies to cockroach. That's why it's important to know this.

Okay, let's break it up a little bit.

Who is the worst offender?

A: coffee

I hope not that would be terrible for me I drink a few pots of coffee a day.

B: chocolate

Hmmm ... that would suck.

C: gluten

Or, really what I'm saying is wheat. Here's yet another reason why people should minimize their wheat intake, right?

D: beer

The answer is beer. The hops that are in the beer can have 25,000 bug bits for two and a half glasses. Wow! Don't start getting out your calculator and finding out how many bug bits you ingested last night. Just set it aside.

Another common question I get:

Does the quality of the food item correspond with fewer bug bits per bite?

The answer is no. That doesn't work that way. If you decide you want to eat chocolate, you will be eating bug bits and we are most concerned about cockroach especially if you have a cockroach allergy.

Same goes for the coffee. You may say, "Dr. Skarada, you say you drink a lot of coffee. What are your feelings about that?" Well, I'm not allergic to cockroach but if you get the beans and you kind of rinse it out - get all the powdery stuff away from them and then grind them, that might have less bug bits. This is just my idea. It's not a fact .

Okay, so there's some pearls for you.

Okay y'all, I'm done having fun. Where are the pearls. What do we want to learn from this? There are some important pearls.

Number one, if you have a food allergy in general, you can't cure that with amino therapy and taking medicines, antihistamines and stuff - ain't gonna work. If you have a cockroach allergy, that's something that does respond to immunotherapy. So, keep that in mind. Also, I have found - and this is anecdotal okay - but I'll look into this maybe I'll do a video down the road. When I have people who have allergies and headaches and we treat them with amino therapy and their headaches get better they are disproportionately allergic to cockroach. And I think that's also why oftentimes for our headache diet, we tell people to avoid these foods like chocolate and coffee and beer. And so I wonder if there's more of an underpinning of allergy to some of the headache etiology out there.

Anyway, this is Dr. Douglas Skarada, Modern Nose Clinic.

We have fun here. We want to educate you. We want you to know more. So, explore and learn more at the Modern Nose Clinic.

Signing off.

Doug Skarada,
Modern Nose Clinic

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Thank you!

Dr. Skarada and the Modern Nose Clinic Team