If you're familiar with any of my other stories, journals or questions, you may know I have a large helping of allergies, as well as some IBS-related issues with my stomach. Since I've been reading Eating Right for a Bad Gut, I've been trying to incorporate some of the advice, albeit in small chunks.

One note the author has is that you should incorporate a multi-vitamin into your diet. While that is usually good advice for anyone, it's especially good advice for folks with some sort of inflammatory bowel disease, as our systems generally don't pull in all the vitamins they should during digestion—so we need to compensate.

That being so, Sabrina and I were doing some food shopping on Friday night and I ended up on the supplements aisle at Fred Meyer. I saw a big bottle of multi-vitamins. Well, actually, I saw a confusing array of different blends. I was so confused I decided on the standard One-A-Day men's version. Yay for me, I thought... I'll actually be back on a multi-vitamin. Surely that will be a good thing, right?

Well, it would have been, except for one small thing. After taking my first tablet, my throat got scratchy and sore and that night, in bed, my breathing was a bit laboured and painful. I awoke the next morning to a massive sore throat, feeling a bit weak. I figured I'd just picked something up; we had just experienced a bit of a cold snap over the past week and it seemed feasible.

However, later in the day, the symptoms were gone and I felt fine. I disregarded the issue, and went about my day. When I took my next pill after dinner that night, a sore throat followed shortly. Then my breathing became laboured again, and I got sweaty and a bit dizzy. I finally put the pieces together and checked the pill bottle:

"Contains: Fish (cod, pollock, haddock, hake, cusk, redfish)." In tiny letters. At the bottom of massive list of ingredients with confusing scientific names. Oh yeah, I'm allergic to fish and other seafood. I'd entirely missed that part of the label.

I spent that night with the same symptoms and a horrible stomach pain in the middle of the night. In my reading, most of these symptoms seem to point to a mild case of Anaphylaxis. Makes all the disbelieving words of those doubting my allergy when I was younger seem a bit insane.

I guess the moral of the story is that if you have allergies, check the labels. And I mean, really check them. Just because you think there is no reason your allergen might be in the item you plan on using or consuming, it doesn't mean it isn't. I'm just lucky my allergy isn't any stronger, yielding a full on case of Anaphylactic shock.

Also, is anyone interested in an open bottle of 198 daily multi-vitamin tablets? Interested parties must not be allergic to fish or soy...