I'm allergic to more than 40 things including water

Watch: 'I have 40+ allergies - including water - I track them on an Excel spreadsheet'

A woman who is living with over 40 allergies, including water, has shared how she has to use a colour-coded spread sheet to keep track of them all.

Chloe Ramsay, 19, a carer, from Havant, Hampshire, was born with a number food allergies. If she ate certain foods, such as bananas or potatoes, she would often go into anaphylactic shock and need to be rushed to A&E.

While she no longer ends up hospitalised from allergic reactions, thanks to the treatments she underwent in childhood, Chloe currently has a list of 40 things that can cause her mouth and throat to swell up dangerously, or bring her skin up in hives. She describes some of her reactions as incredibly "invasive" and include swelling lips, redness and a "scratchy" sensation when she breathes.

"We found out about my first allergies when I was six months old and my mum was weaning me," Chloe explains. "If I was given potatoes or bananas I would go blue and pass out, but luckily my reactions aren't that bad any more. They change, but currently I can't eat foods like strawberries, kiwis, fruit juices and I can't use scented shampoos and body washes."

In June 2023 Chloe was diagnosed with pollen food syndrome, which the NHS describes as an allergy to any pollen-derived substances - including sweets, fruits, and even perfumes. The symptoms are caused by the structures of proteins in fruits, vegetables and nuts. They're similar in shape to proteins found in some tree, grass or weed pollens. The condition is commonly found in people who suffer from hay fever.

While her diagnosis helped to explain most of her allergies, Chloe also suffers from aquagenic urticaria, an allergy to water. When unmedicated, showers cause her to flare up in hives and getting caught in the rain leaves her "wanting to scrape [my] skin off with a knife".

"With the water allergy, it just came on one day in October 2022," she explains. "I would be fine taking showers then one day I started itching and each time was worse. I thought I'd used a body wash I was allergic to, but I changed my shampoo, conditioner, body wash, flannel, scrubber, and the water temperature and nothing seemed to help. Whenever I washed my hands I would get massive rashes and felt like ants crawling on my skin."

Her reactions to water were sometimes so intense she would be unable to focus on anything else. "Once I got stuck in the rain waiting for a train and by the time I got inside, I couldn't stop scratching - I looked like a drug addict," she explains. I told my mum 'I can't do this any more'."

In order to treat Chloe's allergies growing up the hospital used a 'microdosing' technique to train the body not to go into anaphylaxis and to reduce her reactions. "At school I used to have my own little blue band so the dinner staff knew my allergies," she says. "They had to make my food from scratch. Now I'm at university, I struggle because a lot of the social stuff is based around food and I have to constantly be checking the menu. It makes me quite anxious to be sitting around food that I know I can't eat."

Last year, because of the severity of her reactions, a medical board approved Chloe to be given an injected medication. Twice a month she has to inject herself to keep her allergies at bay, something she may have to do for the rest of her life.

Thankfully, the drug has meant her water allergy is "almost completely gone", but she still needs to be careful around perfumes and eating pollen-derived substances, even when on the medication. In order to keep track of the foods she reacts to, and how severely, Chloe uses a unique traffic-light colour coded system on an Excel spreadsheet.

"So far, nobody has been on that injection for life," she explains. "Apparently I'm one of the unlucky 3% that wasn't completely cured by it. I used to get quite upset, but I just try to laugh it off now.

"I'm allergic to so many things that my parents joke 'what will you be allergic to next, oxygen?'."

Chloe's allergy list

• Peanuts

• Hazelnuts

• Soya

• Smoked meats

• Tomato

• Carrot

• Apricot

• Banana

• Blueberry

• Blackberry

• Cherry

• Cranberry

• Grapes

• Grapefruit

• Kiwi

• Mango

• Orange

• Papaya

• Peach

• Pear

• Raspberry

• Strawberry

• Dried apricot

• Dried mango

• Dried banana

• Raisins

• Dried cranberry

• Tinned orange

• Tinned pear

• Tinned peach

• Tinned apricot

• Tinned apple

• Tinned mango

• Fruit pastilles

• Wine gums

• Haribo

• Skittles

• Jelly beans

• Jelly babies

• Water

• Pollen

• Dust

• Sand

• Mould

• Dogs

• Cats

• Glue

• Face paint

• Insect bites

• Perfumes

• Candles

• Air freshener

• Deodorant

• LUSH products

Read more about allergies:

• Surge in food allergies sparks call for better GP training (Yahoo Life UK, 6-min read)

• What food should you introduce to babies to reduce the risk of intolerances and allergies? (Yahoo Life UK, 5-min read)

• What’s behind the large rise in food allergies among children in the UK? (The Conversation, 4-min read)