"On top of all of this, I've Hashimoto's hypthyrodism, an auto-immune disease that results in my body trying to kill my thyroid."

Interesting following this thread as I was just recently diagnosed with autoimmune pancreatitis caused by IGg4, general term is IGg4 related disease and can also attack other organs of the body.  It is rare, <5 per 100,000 in the general population.  It was only identified a relatively short time ago and research continues as to its cause.  My wife asked me several times if it could be related to bee stings or beekeeping and of course I got defensive and said no.  But after doing some research I found it occurs at a higher frequency in beekeepers and a few other occupations where individuals are exposed to high levels of protein antigens.  Treatment is high levels of steroids for a month, tapering off and then go to an immune suppression medication.  Relapses are common.

As I understand it, IgE, is what gives individuals "resistance" to bee stings.  

"Allergens and nematodes that induce IgE also induce IgG4. However, a so-called “modified Th2 response” refers to the scenario in which IgG4 antibody is produced without IgE antibody production, which seems to be the desired, healthy response to innocuous antigens, as it occurs during occupational exposures to antigens such as in beekeepers 48. Allergen-specific IgG4 antibodies are also induced during allergen immunotherapy and accompany clinical improvement 61."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5325071/

http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(15)00342-X/pdf


 



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