Tongue Tingling from allergy shots
Anyone experience full-body tingling/anxiety symptoms while on allergy shots (SCIT)?
I’m curious if anyone has experienced something similar while receiving allergy immunotherapy.
I’m 26 and have pretty severe environmental allergies. I started allergy shots a couple of months ago and recently developed a strange cluster of symptoms:
Full-body tingling/“pins and needles” sensations
Tingling is especially noticeable around/in my mouth this time
Increased anxiety that seems to come along with the physical sensations
Muscle tension/tightness, especially on the left side of my neck/shoulder
Occasional eyelid twitching
Some GI issues
Symptoms seem to get noticeably worse with stress and possibly heat
I have NOT actually been having hives
No actual tongue/throat swelling or difficulty breathing
The interesting part is that almost the exact same thing happened to me about two years ago.
At that time, I was also receiving allergy shots, it was during the hot summer months, and I started experiencing generalized tingling, muscle tightness and significant anxiety. I went to the doctor multiple times and had testing done. They ultimately thought anxiety might be contributing and prescribed hydroxyzine and buspirone.
I eventually stopped the allergy shots because I suspected they were contributing. After being off the shots for a couple of weeks and taking the medications for a period of time, everything gradually settled down. I stopped the anxiety medications and eventually felt completely normal again.
Fast-forward two years and I’m trying allergy shots again. After being on them for a couple of months, a very similar set of symptoms has returned, again during the summer. The major new symptom this time is the mouth tingling.
I’ve also noticed that if I get stressed at work, the tingling and anxiety can suddenly ramp up. Heat also seems like it may make things worse.
I’ve been taking Xyzal, and I still have hydroxyzine that was prescribed for anxiety previously. I’m discussing all of this with my allergist before continuing to increase my allergy-shot dose.
I’ve considered whether this could be histamine/mast-cell related, but I don’t want to assume it’s MCAS when generalized tingling isn’t necessarily a classic mast-cell symptom. I’m also considering whether the allergy shots/seasonal allergen load/heat could be triggering something that then gets amplified by my nervous system and anxiety.
I’ve had recent bloodwork that was mostly reassuring from an electrolyte/CBC standpoint. Calcium, potassium, sodium and glucose were normal. I do have elevated iron studies/ferritin that I’m following up separately, but I’m not sure they’re related. I’m also considering getting B12, folate, magnesium, copper, ceruloplasmin, zinc and thyroid levels checked to rule out other causes of the tingling.
I’m going to ask my allergist:
Whether I should temporarily hold/reduce the allergy shots or slow the buildup
Whether they’ve seen systemic symptoms like this from immunotherapy without typical hives/anaphylaxis
Whether checking baseline/acute tryptase or other mast-cell mediators makes sense
Exactly what allergens and diluent/preservatives are in my injections
Has anyone experienced generalized tingling, muscle tension, anxiety or neurologic-type sensations during allergy shots—especially during the buildup phase or hot summer months?
And if you stopped or reduced the shots, did the symptoms eventually disappear?