Allergic To Exercise: True Or False?

Posting Date: 02/08/1999

Tanya: I was diagnosed as having an allergy to exercise. I only have had it when I dance at night, and the reaction is that I break out in hives, usually on my face. I pass out, my blood pressure drops and I'm go into shock. They told me when I'm eating and exercising, I go into anaphylactic shock. I always carry medication with me, but I am skeptical about this diagnosis. Do you know anything about it? Would a blood test be helpful?

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Dr. Dean: This is an attitude I like - skeptical, but not stupid. Because if the diagnosis is right and you fool around here, you're dead. So be very careful.

Allergy to exercise is real. It is called exercise anaphylaxis and it is not very common, though a lot of people would love to have this excuse.

The latest thing I've learned about this is that it is strongly associated with certain food allergies. I would suspect that you are eating something that in combination with the exercise makes this happen. Some others who have it have found and eliminated the food culprit, and no longer have exercise allergy.

There are standard food-testing practices you can use. If a food makes you blow up in hives, you can test that with a blood test.

For the subtler forms of food allergy, it is often trickier.

If you say this only happens at night, that means to me you may have tried dancing in the morning and it doesn't happen. It makes me think you have a habit of eating something in the evening that you don't normally eat earlier in the day.

You can do your own detective work, or an allergist could put you on what is called an elimination diet. You start out eating foods that are very rarely the cause of allergy, like rice and lamb, and see if the reaction goes away.

If it does, then you add in a few of your favorite foods, one at a time. As soon as you have the reaction, then you know what it was. Ask your doctor to help you get a food allergy panel, just to make sure.