Hi,
I'm a 44 year old female with major allergies, asthma, fibromyalgia and polycycstic ovary syndrome. I just found out last summer that I had a nickle allergy when I asked why I was breaking out around my wire frame glasses. I got titanium frames this time and it has made a huge difference.

Over Christmas, I have been having a major anaphylactic reaction, swollen tongue and throat, trouble breathing, hives, heart palpitations etc. My allergist felt it was due to the metformin I take for the PCOS and took me off of it. On one trip to my allergist, I picked up a freebie publication on allergies. They had an article on nickle allergies. In the article, it said that if you have a nickle allergy, you shouldn't cook in stainless steel or eat canned goods. It said that the nickle from the cans and pans leaches into the food, particularly with high acid foods. Given the "bucket theory" of allergies (your immune system is like a leaky bucket, as long as you don't add allergens faster than the bucket leaks, you don't react. If you add too many allergens too fast, the bucket overflows and you react), I decided to act on the tip. I got rid of all my canned goods and bought some aluminum pots and pans. (I did some research first, the whole aluminum cookware/alzheimer's connection seems to be pretty well debunked, there is something like 15 times more aluminum in one antacid tablet than you get from cooking a meal in aluminum cookware and diabetes is looking to be the biggest risk for getting alzheimers. Besides, the restaurant industry never stopped using aluminum, so if you eat in restaurants, you're getting it anyway).

Anyway, the result is that my anaphylaxis is steadily retreating. Interestingly, my fibromyalgia seems to be retreating with it. I take a muscle relaxer for it, and I can take anywhere from 4 - 8 milligrams a night depending on my level of pain. Over Christmas, I was taking 8 milligrams and still having pain. The last two nights I've only taken 2 milligrams and had little or no pain. I have never taken that little muscle relaxer before. I've also stopped having trouble swallowing and stopped having symptoms of what I thought were hemorrhoids but now appear to have been internal hives. I'm starting to think that this nickle allergy has been going on for a long time at a lot more serious level than I realized. Has anyone else out there encountered any of this?