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in collaboration with
Dr. Julien Cottet (allergist doctor)
Throwing up from an oyster does not necessarily indicate an unfresh product. In many cases, it may be SEIPA, a little-known food protein allergy that just broke out and that prohibits you from trying again. The explanations of Julien Cottet, allergist.
A platter of seafood, half a dozen oysters on the plate, and suddenly, it’s uneasiness: here you are seized with nausea and vomiting, which you attribute to a not very fresh basket. But if poisoning remains possible (many oysters have recently been called back), it is not always the cause of your condition. In many cases, little analyzed but well present, it can be a question of what is called a SEIPA, a syndrome of enterocolitis induced by food proteins. In short, an allergy to oysters.
SEIPA, a known syndrome in children that also affects adults
“SEIPA is an allergy to food proteins, well known in children about cow’s milk proteins or eggs, for example (many European and Canadian studies exist on this subject), but which is not caused by antibodies” says Dr. Cottet. In adults, the syndrome also exists and can occur at any time during life: “It causes an underestimated number of allergies, mainly to oysters and other seafood” confirms the allergist.
However, if we are talking about allergies, you should know that SEIPA does not cause anaphylactic, cutaneous or respiratory reactions, but symptoms that mimic severe gastroenteritis between 1 to 4 hours after ingestion :
- Vomiting first;
- Dehydration;
- Great asthenia;
- Diarrhea.
In fact, no recourse to adrenaline or antihistamines is effective. “You have to treat this like a severe gastro, namely by rehydration, sometimes intravenously, and drugs that fight against vomiting” says the doctor.
An allergy probably underestimated
If this SEIPA is little known, it is above all because it is largely underestimated in adults, according to allergists. Indeed, faced with a food that makes us sick, especially an occasional dish such as seafood, few of us consult or seek to invest more in the problem. “There are very few data in terms of epidemiology or cases on adults in the scientific literature. But when we meet a patient who complains of vomiting a few hours after having ingested a food, we can legitimately wonder if this food infection is not rather a SEIPA than an intoxication. Especially if this person is the only one to have been affected or if it happens again a year apart during the holidays. There is still a small statistical chance that this will happen” says Dr. Cottet.
Can we eat oysters again when we have been sick?
Bad news for oyster lovers, if you have had a bad experience, you will probably have to stay away from the trays in the future: a declared SEIPA cannot be cured.
“While the syndrome usually resolves within two years in children, in adults recovery is not assured, even after several years of avoiding oysters. The only treatment we have is total eviction” confirms Dr. Cottet.
And to know if you are really subject to a SEIPA, you would have to eat the product in question again “but it must be done under medical supervision and monitored, so as not to risk a serious relapse” advises the allergist.
Since oysters are only back on the plate once a year, on average, perhaps it is wiser to fall back on smoked salmon…