Poor Joey King! She recently did an allergy test and posted a picture of her results on Instagram. Turns out she’s allergic to a lot of things. If you aren’t familiar with allergy testing, the way they work is this: Your doctor will label your back in marker and then give you a small puncture with common allergens to test for immediate reactions. If your skin gets irritated and turns red, gets a rash, or develops raised, round spots, it’s showing a reaction to the allergen. The skin prick allergy tests generally test for things like hay fever, dust mites, allergic asthma, dermatitis (eczema), pet dander, penicillin, bee venom, and different food allergies.
Joey King has allergies — and lots of them! On Friday, May 10, the Kissing Booth alum, 24, shared a social media photo of an allergy test that she had done. Her entire back was covered in markings made of orange ink.
According to the Mayo Clinic, an allergy test is performed by doing “a skin prick test, also called a puncture or scratch test, [checking] for immediate allergic reactions to as many as 50 different substances at once. This test is usually done to identify allergies to pollen, mold, pet dander, dust mites and foods.”
Parts of King’s skin were also red from being freshly poked.
“Wanna hang out? I’ll bring the antihistamine,” she quipped in the caption of her Instagram carousel.
The photo almost got more of a reaction than her skin, with her peers and fans alike weighing in on her results.
“What aren’t you allergic to?” one person asked. Another wrote, “I’m not an expert but I think you’re allergic to some stuff…”
Dax Shepard commented, “Great. So basically…everything?” Meanwhile, Channing Tatum added, “Bro….”
Oh man, that looks rough, like she’s allergic to so many things. I’m not a doctor, so I’m not sure which mark indicates which allergy, so if there’s anyone out there who can read Joey’s results, feel free to educate the rest of us. I tried to Google it but it looked like Greek to me! I’m glad she was able to get some answers so she knows what to avoid. I looked it up, and it looks like most American insurance companies will cover allergy testing, too.
I feel very fortunate that despite there being a lot of cat allergies in my family, my only known allergies are to dust and yellow jacket stings, the latter which I found out a few years ago after disturbing two different nests three weeks apart. (Long story but the tl;dr is if you’re going to go geocaching in the woods with friends and need to step off trail to ‘see a man about a horse,’ poison ivy is not the only thing you need to look out for.) I had seasonal allergies while growing up on Long Island, but since moving to the South, I have not had an issue, go figure. Trust me, I know all too well how much of a pain it can be to go to a specialist’s office and do a lengthy test. But, experience has taught me that it’s always better to be in the camp of knowing so you can treat or prevent rather than finding out when it’s too late.
Photos via Instagram and credit: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
I don’t know about those skin prick tests. First of all, your skin is getting pricked and second of all you’re getting pricked with irritating substances, so most people are going to have a freaking reaction to such a test. I have Rosacea and that is really a sad condition for the sufferer. I can’t eat hot peppers, most spices, pickled food, caffeine, alcohol and many other foods, My face gets papules and pustules right after eating horseradish, siracha, wasabi etc. I will trade what Joey has for my condition in a heart beat.
Oh, wow. I thought rosacea was just red (sometimes flaky) skin.
This is not medical advice, but a reminder to treat rosacea with care.
Rosacea is a serious condition.
It can lead to corneal ulcerations, corneal opacification from vascularization, infections in the eyes, and eventual blindness. About 5% of people with rosacea go on to develop eye problems.
It can lead to rhinophyma, almost exclusively in men, which deforms the nose (like WC Fields).
There are other possible complications.
Triggers need to be avoided. Metrogel is a standard treatment, but can be expensive. OTC azelaic acid helps some people and is inexpensive. There are other treatments.
Staying out of the sun is really important.
Yeah they are iffy. My daughter has done a few and the results weren’t always clear. Once she reacted to the saline control and another time it showed she wasn’t allergic to things we know she is. Allergies are confusing. Rosacea definitely sounds awful. I also have issues with some of my favorite foods and sometimes it’s so hard to explain to people why I can’t eat something.
I also have rosacea and very sensitive skin and I had just the opposite reaction that Joey did. I thought I had been having some pretty serious seasonal allergies plus a shellfish allergy, but every single thing came back negative. My skin did turn red and it was uncomfortable, but not to the level that my doctor deemed an allergic reaction. They double checked with a blood test and that was negative too.
But yeah, I get red marks and hives on my face for no discernible reason at all sometimes. New shampoo? Ate something with tomato in it? Who knows. At least I feel confidant that shellfish won’t kill me now.
If you do allergy testing and you get a ton of positive results or if it just seems like you’re allergic to everything you could have histamine intolerance. I have it and finally figuring that out changed my health for the better like night and day 😍
She was not specific on when the picture was taken. I took the test and after two days it was clear that I am extremely allergic to nickel (I already knew that) and rubber accelerator (Thiuram), those are in everything. I have milder allergy to Fragance mix II and MDGBN. The issue is that is not clear where to find those two.
Usually you see the doctor after 4 days for the diagnostic. And it is very clear where is the severe allergy (proper wounds) and the milder one (rashes).
Yeah this isn’t super diagnostic. My son has had allergy testing done, for one thing usually there is confirmatory blood work. For another, if the hive is below a certain size it doesn’t count as a positive (depending on allergen). Also there can be cross reactivity, I test positive for peanut on skin but dont have an allergy, the protein is cross reactive with ragweed. Not to minimise her result because it does look like she has some work to do 🙁
This condition sounds absolutely horrible and frustrating! Hopefully, now that she knows that she is allergic to so many things, she can use the information to at least get some relief! What Tankerbelle, above, said sounds like excellent advice: I have (less allergies than JK) allergies, and keeping my histamine levels as low as possible helps a bit.
I’m allergic to most pain meds, antibiotics and other medications including ironically Benadryl. Also to cinnamon, most perfume and a lot of other stuff. No skin test.. all things I have had severe reaction too or sent me into anaphylactic shock needing to be intubated. Pretty scary actually I have to have epi pens everywhere because things that may have never set me off before may suddenly do so. The worst episode ever thankfully happened while I was being admitted for an open heart Cath. Was reviewing my meds with nurse and felt like my mouth was swelling then my face felt funny and bam
I stopped breathing airway shut. I was intubated then and revived woke up in ICU and des unsure what cleaning product, perfume, or what set me off then. I was exposed to too much. Skin tests nope.. did them years ago and missed a lot.. almost got me killed w/ a Benedryl incident.
Yeah, I had a skin prick test once and I got 97%!
(“I’ve got a viper in this box …”)
I had this allergy test done and my results felt just like this. I’m allergic to everything (basically, too). Dog dander (I own two), can dander, trees, grasses, dust mites and the list goes on and on. I know how she feels.
My allergy dr. does those on my arms. The last time I did it, my entire arm turned into a giant welt. I’m allergic to trees. What kind? All of them.
I’m allergic to a lot of other stuff too, thankfully not many foods or medicine, just environmental stuff. Allergies shots and a daily Claritin, usually I’m OK but we’re in the midst of pollen pollen everywhere here at the moment, so it’s a little much.
Skin prick tests have a 50-60% false positive rate. The gold standard of allergy testing (for food, at least) is ingestion. If you can eat a food and have no reaction, you’re not allergic, regardless of what skin and blood tests say.