What an incredible honor to share that I have successfully defended my doctoral dissertation, and received an award for my poster dissemination at our Graduate Research Forum!
My research, titled, Lived Experiences of Food Allergic Young Adults in Differentiating Anxiety from Anaphylaxis in the Aftermath of a Severe Allergic Reaction, has been such a labor of love over the past four years – And is now available online for public review! You can search for the full publication on ProQuest (ISBN:9798291582060), or download the PDF version below.
Take a look at the abstract from Bauder, 2025:
The physiological and psychological distress symptoms associated with anxiety are markedly similar to those seen in anaphylaxis, making it difficult to differentiate between the two acute reactions (Manassis, 2012). Research suggests that medically traumatic events like anaphylaxis have the potential to perpetuate brain-body disconnections (e.g., decreased interoceptive accuracy, increased sensitivity to interoceptive signals) that make it increasingly challenging to differentiate the overlapping symptomatology (Schaan et al., 2019; Manassis, 2012; Joshi, Aupperle, & Khalsa, 202). The misinterpretation of anxiety symptoms as medical emergencies is a well-known phenomenon in healthcare and emergency medicine, but has yet to be specifically explored in the context of food allergy. This study employed a mixed-methods research design to explore the functional impact of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) on survivors of food-induced anaphylaxis. The study gathered allergic disease and mental health data from twenty (n=20) food-allergic young adults. 65% of participants (n=13) reported that sometimes they cannot differentiate between anxiety and anaphylaxis symptoms. Five (n=5) participants who endorsed PTSS were further interviewed. Common themes across their interviews captured a shared lived experience of anxiety while attempting to authenticate anaphylaxis symptoms. It is the hope that the results of this investigation will provide healthcare professionals with a greater understanding of the psychological impacts of anaphylaxis and contribute to the future development of evidence-based prevention strategies and/or treatment protocols to alleviate undue psychosocial burden in this community.
My younger self, struggling to make sense of the impact an allergic reaction could have on her mental health, would be so proud to know that the ‘Anxiety or Anaphylaxis?’ phenomenon now holds a permanent place in the academic literature – Not only validating her personal experiences, but reassuring others that they are not alone.
It has been such an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to amplify the voices of those in our community who have long suffered the psychosocial burdens of allergic disease.
This is just the beginning of an exciting career to come!
All Things Allergies 