Yellow food color (coating on aspirin)

[Guest guest]

Over the Christmas holidays, I ran out of regular aspirin. I had been breaking

a 325 mg tablet in half, and taking half with breakfast and half with lunch or

dinner as part of my daily desensitization. Didn't have any problems with

stomach that way.

I went out and bought a couple of bottles of baby aspirin (which had the yellow

coating to protect the stomach). I started taking 2 of them twice a day.

Within a couple of days, I noticed my asthma symptoms flared up quiet a bit, and

got progressively worse. So I bought some more regular aspirin (non coated),

and things seemed to have improved.

I know that some Sampterites are also sensitive to artificial food colors. The

label on the aspirin bottle said that the coating is yellow food " D & C Yellow #10

Aluminum Lake , FD & C Yellow #6 Aluminum Lake " .

There are articles that indicate some people who are allergic to aspirin may

also be allergic to " tartrazine " , which is an artificial yellow color used in

all sorts of foods and medicines.

I've also been researching foods that contain tartrazine, and have been trying

to avoid them. Turns out lots of things I wasn't aware of have the yellow color

added, and some of the articles state the reactions can be delayed up to 72

hours.

I don't get headaches, but it appears that is one of the symptoms for some

people.

Have any of you experienced reactions to anything with yellow food coloring, or

tried to eliminate that?

In my case, I'm pretty sure there are multiple things that trigger my sampters

symptoms, so trying to figure out which one (or ones) are triggers is like

herding cats.

Jack