"When in Doubt, Just Go to the Hospital" — Woman Details Allergic Reaction
Published Oct. 3 2023, 9:37 a.m. ET
For someone with an allergy to a specific food, there are few things more terrifying than discovering, hours after a meal, that you’re having a reaction to something you ate. Or, more importantly, something that came in contact with your food or that you simply touched. That’s what happened to @shiv_sewlal on TikTok, as she documented her severe allergic reaction.
Shiv explains how she discovered she was having an allergic reaction to something, but doesn't know what it could be. She has an established peanut allergy and even an EpiPen that's used for situations such as this. But, she says, except for her nearly swollen shut eyes and some itchiness, she doesn’t feel too bad.
A woman documents her severe allergic reaction to peanuts.
In her video, Shiv appears on-screen with swollen eyes that even seem to have some deep purple marks around them. Her face is so swollen that the facial recognition kiosk in her apartment building can't even identify her.
Shiv says she feels fine, except of course for her swollen eyes, and she finally decides to head to the hospital.
“I never know when you actually go to the hospital or not,” Shiv says in the video, “Like, I feel completely fine, it’s just, this is not looking fine.”
Which is a severe understatement, to be honest.
But then she adds, “I can't see properly” and demonstrates how she is feeling her way around her apartment. Cut to Shiv in the elevator, headed to the hospital. Which, let’s be honest, should have been her first move. But I get it. Sometimes, you think these allergic reactions may clear up and subside on their own or with a dose of Benadryl.
After Shiv meets with doctors, they urge her to use her EpiPen in the future. And in a follow-up video, Shiv explains that she didn't know her peanut allergy could be impacted simply by touching something that also happened to be touched by peanuts.
As someone with a shellfish allergy, I’m also supposed to steer clear of any other fish from a seafood department or restaurant, since it's likely that those fish could come into contact with shellfish hands. So I get it. What I don't quite get, however, is Shiv not using her EpiPen. And others are inclined to agree.
People don't understand why the OP didn't use her EpiPen.
The fact that Shiv has an EpiPen, which could de-escalate situations such as this, proves that she might need it at some point. This is that “some point.”
Many of the comments under the initial video show confusion as to why she didn't see this as the perfect emergency in which to get use out of her emergency EpiPen.
“Baby this is a ‘let me use my EpiPen; situation,” one user commented.
Another shared, “As a nurse, I'm not going to lie, I'm panicking that you didn't use your EpiPen. I'm glad [it] all turned out well, but in the future, that's an immediate ER visit.”
Other comments are straight up “baffled” by how calm Shiv is during her allergic reaction. Because I have never been that calm in my own allergic reaction experiences, no way miss ma’am. And, while Shiv definitely should have used that EpiPen, thankfully, everything worked out for her in the end.
