Bananas, possibly only overripe, with negative skin prick + positive blood/IGE

Question

So after nearly a year I got seen at the allergy clinic after a bad reaction to a slice of overripe banana. It was closer to Oral Allergy Syndrome, than anaphylaxis - violent vomiting within the hour, tingling mouth, washed out for following 24h+.

Skin prick tests were negative for everything which included likely foods for cross-reactivity. They took bloods for a wide range of things. The were a couple of blood values which were out of sorts, but nothing to write home about.

Just got the banana IgE blood test result - its high, and outside of the normal range. I'm not due back for months and am about to leave the country, likely permanently, hence me asking here.

I've found very little that explains the contradictory results, where the skin prick result is negative. The contradictory result the other way round has easy explanations.

I've also seen a very few posts with people talking about being moody allergic to overripe bananas, but being able eat underripe ones. A few commenters noted that their food allergy started like this and just expanded to the unripe fruit too.

I've loads of questions but will start with asking whether this is a recognised pattern? Could this be down to the skin prick test not covering the seeds and skin, so missing the chitinase you're off banana allergy? How will the clinician likely interpret these results? Where is this likely heading, a full on anaphylaxis type allergy, or will it likely stay as an oral allergy syndrome?

Thoughts anyone?

Posted Sep 13, 2025, 10:59 PM UTC

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