Linette, 27 years old
Living with a severe peanut allergy
Linette Van Der Bacht has suffered from a severe peanut allergy since she was very young. At worst, eating peanuts could be fatal. How does this allergy affect her daily life?
Linette opens the door, smiles behind her mask and takes us into the kitchen and dining room of her house on the edge of the old town of Olten. Outside, in front of the window, there is a natural garden that she created herself. In the kitchen, too, the products are largely natural: the refrigerator is full of vegetables and fresh, unprocessed foods, such as fish and eggs. Packaged products are banned because Linette suffers from a severe allergy. It is enough for a (packaged) product to contain even traces of peanuts for Linette, in the absence of specific medical treatment, to experience severe allergic reactions that can lead to anaphylactic shock. “You start to feel an itch in your throat, and then red spots appear on your face, followed by difficulty breathing,” he explains. In the most serious cases, you risk losing consciousness and, in extreme cases, dying.
“Before I go out for a drink with my friends at the bar, they have to check whether there are peanuts on the counter” – Linette Van Der Bacht, a medical student with a peanut allergy.
“Medicines are more important than cell phones.”
On a scale of one to seven, Linette’s allergy is at the highest level, seventh. Fortunately, she has avoided the most serious consequences for now. As soon as she feels symptoms, she takes the medicines that she always carries with her. “They are more important to me than cell phones,” she laughs.
She was diagnosed with a peanut allergy when she was three years old. The diagnosis had turned the lives of all six members of her family upside down. Other children could buy a milk roll or a chocolate bar when they went for walks or trips. Linette’s family, however, had to forgo them because the risk that they contained traces of peanuts was too great.
No experience of bullying
Unlike other allergy sufferers, Linette has never been a victim of bullying. A European study on peanut allergies found that 77 per cent of allergy sufferers feel excluded, and 43 per cent have been bullied at least once in their lives. Added to this are frustration, stress and anxiety related to food intake. Very often, healthy parents and guardians of allergic children are the ones affected. “My first boyfriend and I were nicknamed Peanut and Nutcracker, but for fun, not because of bullying,” Linette says.
Linette likes to eat
Eating doesn’t make her anxious.
“This is normal for me.”
The medical student, who chose to continue her studies partly because of her allergy, takes it philosophically. “This is normal for me.” However, it is difficult to imagine how a severe allergy can affect daily life.
To kiss her, her boyfriend must avoid eating peanuts the day before. The allergens remain in the oral cavity “only” for about four hours, but you can never be too careful.
In retail stores, Linette asks the production department whether the peanuts were packaged before the almonds. If so, she gives up the almonds. Linette knows, for example, that she can safely eat bread from Migro’s shop.
She takes a long time to go shopping in stores because she checks the list of ingredients on the packaging to exclude any traces of peanuts and other ingredients to which she is allergic. She does not put products displayed next to unpackaged peanuts in her shopping cart.
At the beginning of her studies, Linette told her classmates about her allergy.
When she goes to the movies, she watches movies about to be removed from the program so that fewer people are watching, and she doesn’t run the risk of sitting next to someone who eats peanuts or M&Ms.
When she’s on the train, if a passenger next to her eats a Snickers or another bar that contains peanuts, Linette moves to another carriage.
Before putting on lipstick, she tests it on her wrist.
She shares her experience and knowledge of allergies with others at the Verein Erdnussallergie & Anaphylaxis (the association for peanut allergy and anaphylaxis, erdnussallergie.ch), where she is a board member. She is a point of contact for people who have just been diagnosed with an allergy. How do I organise my day now? What do I have to pay attention to? Questions that Sophie can answer expertly.
Linette’s peanut allergy affects her day but not her life. She goes jogging, does yoga, dances, does strength training and rowing and meets friends like any other girl. Her great passion is the natural garden where she can forget about her allergy, surrounded by flowering plants and insects.
Claudia, 41 years old
I was diagnosed with asthma for the first time when I was 8 years old. I had cats and hamsters at home, I was allergic to their fur and also to dust and some foods.
I followed the treatments, but things weren’t going well at all; every day, I was breathing worse and worse. When you’re a child, you somehow get used to this not being 100%. If the crisis was bad, I took a bronchodilator. There didn’t seem to be any other solutions.
Then, at 18-19 years old, I was hospitalised for a serious crisis. I remember the terror in my parents’ eyes; we had a very bad time. The doctors prescribed me a treatment to be taken morning and evening, but there were no effects, they didn’t last, and over the years, my asthma continued to get worse. I had reached a point where I couldn’t even walk and talk at the same time; I had a constant cough that never went away.
So, I turned to a pulmonologist. The doctor who took care of me immediately realised the seriousness of the situation; I now had a very reduced lung capacity. She made me enter a specific program with a therapy to treat Severe Asthma. And there, finally, something changed.
Now, I do the biological therapy every 2 weeks, and it was a godsend.
I no longer needed the bronchodilator, but above all, I found my smile and serenity again. I feel in control of my body and life again and discovered a passion for running. If I think that until recently, I had trouble walking, and now I can train every day, I have made progress. So much so that two years ago, I ran my first marathon. It wouldn’t have been possible without finding the right therapy.