Allergy Attacks: Signs and Symptoms

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People who have allergies live a difficult life. Itching eyes, sneezing and coughing are so inconvenient. Allergies are no joke for such may cause sudden death to people with serious allergy.

The primary treatment for allergies is mere avoidance of allergens. For patient that has food allergy, the food of which he is sensitive to must be determined first. To do this he must read a lot of books and articles about allergies; he must always check on the ingredients of the food he eats; and most of all, he should seek professional and medical attention. 90% of the food allergies come from milk, eggs, peanut, fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat and soy. As much as possible, patients should read the labels of their food and if in the restaurant, avoid foods that may contain ingredients to where they are allergic.

Here are simple guidelines to know the signs and symptoms of the possibly life-threatening reaction on a specific area of the body:

Face – an itchy nose and eyes, runny nose, swelling of the face particularly around the lips and the mouth due to contact with the allergen and swelling of tongue may be experienced.
Respiratory system (airways) – sneezing, difficulty in breathing, speaking and swallowing may occur. Where as, asthmatic symptoms are wheezing, breathlessness and coughing.
Stomach – nausea, cramping pains, bloating, diarrhea, and vomiting might be experienced.
Total body – skin rashes such as hives, itching, swelling, weakness, paleness, chronic skin reactions such as scaly patches, and even loss of consciousness may occur.

What merely causes these symptoms is food protein or just protein. Allergies on dogs and cats are actually allergy on their saliva that contains protein. It is just that cats and dogs lick their body, thus making skin contact on them can cause allergic reaction. These proteins are also called allergens. Most frequently, food-causing allergies are milk, egg, soy, wheat, peanut, nuts, fish and shellfish. Immunoglobulin E is normally produced to make antibodies against virus, bacteria or parasites. However, due to unknown genetic reason, it produces antibodies to normally not harmful protein. The chemicals produced are the one causing the reaction, not anything else.

An allergic reaction to food can take place within few minutes to an hour after such intake. However, severe allergic reaction may just take a matter of seconds to few minutes after the exposure to the allergen. Anaphylactic reaction is a severe allergic reaction that may be triggered by severe allergic reaction to foods, insect stings, medication, and latex. To counter act anaphylaxis, people with allergies must always carry a strong antidote like epinephrine or the synthetic version of it (raceme epinephrine). It comes in the form of a pen and often called EpiPen. Or the dual pen, needle and syringe kit that is called the Twinject.

To be able to treat the other symptoms of allergy, a patient may take antihistamines to relieve gastrointestinal symptoms, hives, sneezing, and runny nose. Bronchodilators can relieve symptoms of asthma. However, they should be taken after the ingestion of the food. In addition, there are no medications yet that can prevent the symptoms before ingestion.

Try to avoid foods that may contain allergen as much as possible. To make it simple for the people to know whether a product contains an allergen or not, the government has made a policy on labeling products. According to allergen-labeling law, manufacturers must state if their products contain allergen. Manufacturers have two options. First, they may state it directly that their product contain allergen. Alternatively, they may list the allergic reaction-causing ingredient and its common name in parenthesis after the list of ingredients. If ever there are no labels in the food product, it is better not to take it. This is to extremely be safe.

Symptoms and signs may take a lifetime of treatment. However, there are occurrences of allergies that have been outgrown. Therefore, allergic patients must not lose hope.

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