Newly diagnosed
Your first 30 days
The diagnosis explains everything, and then quietly hands you a hundred new decisions. You do not have to make them all this week. Here is what actually matters first.
First, the reassuring part. Most people find this gets much easier after the first couple of months. The early weeks feel like everything is a trap. They are not. You are building a set of habits, and once they are built you mostly stop thinking about it.
Week one: safety
Only three things really matter in the first week. Everything else can wait.
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Get your action plan and your adrenaline device
If you are at risk of anaphylaxis, your doctor should give you an ASCIA Action Plan and prescribe an adrenaline device. Ask to be shown how to use it, and practise with a trainer device until it feels automatic.
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Stop the obvious sources
Beef, pork, lamb, goat, venison, kangaroo, offal, and anything obviously made from them. Do not try to work out the subtle cases yet. Poultry, fish, seafood, eggs and plants are fine.
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Tell the people you live with
They need to know what a reaction looks like, where your adrenaline device is, and that the answer to a serious reaction is adrenaline and 000, not a wait-and-see.
Reactions are delayed, which changes the safety maths. A reaction can begin while you are asleep. Make sure someone else in the house knows what to do, and keep your adrenaline device where you sleep, not in a bag by the front door.
Week two: your kitchen and your record
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Do one careful shop
Not a whole pantry clear-out. Just one shop where you read every label properly. It takes twice as long once, and then you know your regular products. Our community finds directory can save you some of that first pass.
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Learn the five words that catch people out
Gelatine, tallow, suet, lard, and stearate. Add glycerine and collagen to the list of things worth querying.
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Get it into your medical record
Ask your GP to record it properly, including in My Health Record if you use one. This matters most in a situation where you cannot speak for yourself.
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Make a card for your wallet
One card, in your wallet, saying what you react to and what to do. Make one here, it takes two minutes.
Week three: the rest of your life
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Medicines and supplements
Take your current medicines to a pharmacist and ask about gelatine capsules and mammal-derived excipients. Many products have an alternative formulation. Do not stop a prescribed medicine on your own.
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Personal and household products
Lower priority than food for most people, but worth knowing about: lanolin, tallow-based soaps, some stearates. Only some people need to worry about these, so do not send yourself into a spiral over it.
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Eating out, once
Pick somewhere quiet and low-stakes and practise the conversation. It gets easier fast, and the first time is the worst time.
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Tell your workplace or school
Particularly if there are shared lunches, catering, or a first aid officer who should know where your adrenaline device is.
Week four: the part that is not logistics
Nobody puts this in a pamphlet, so we will. A fair number of people find the emotional side harder than the practical side, and it usually arrives a few weeks in, once the admin is done.
Grief is a normal response
You may be losing foods that carry a lot of memory: a family roast, a birthday tradition, the pub with your mates. That is a real loss and it is reasonable to feel it.
Anger about the delay
Many people were unwell for years and were told it was stress or IBS. Being right, finally, is not the same as being at peace about it.
Food anxiety
Some hypervigilance early on is protective. If it stops settling, or you find yourself avoiding eating altogether, that is worth raising with your GP.
The social friction
The hardest part is often not the food, it is the host who insists a little will not hurt. You are allowed to be firm about this.
You do not have to do this alone. Other people have been exactly here. Read their stories, or find others near you.
What can wait
To be clear, because the internet will tell you otherwise in your first fortnight: you do not need to replace your cosmetics this month, throw out your cookware, buy special supplements, or read every research paper. Get safe, get fed, get supported. The rest is refinement.
Draft content, not yet clinically reviewed. Clinical reviewer: TODO: name and credentials Review date: TODO Medical statements to be checked against current ASCIA guidance before launch.