My-Allergies

Entries from March 2007

How To Properly Diagnose And Treat Annoying Allergies Effectively

March 31, 2007 · Leave a Comment

By Robbie James

Allergies happen as a result of your bodies immune system reacting the wrong way to some sort of foreign ingredient. Your immune system will notice pollen or mold as a toxic element to your body and react accordingly. The end result can be sneezing, watery eyes, itching, hives, and even difficulty breathing in the course of more severe reactions. For many, the reaction will be slight and may require small or no medical intercession. During an severe allergic reaction, called anaphylaxis, you may initially feel itching which will quickly progress to swelling, pain and vomiting. Anaphylaxis is a potentially life-threatening ailment that requires prompt medical care.

Most allergies can be governed with the help of your medical practitioner, by using antihistamines, decongestants and nasal mists. There are also daily regime changes that you can make to help minimize your exposure to your allergen, such as keeping dogs and cats out of the home or keeping up a dust-free environment. If your allergies start to get in the way of your everyday life, your physician may also suggest immunotherapy, also known as allergy innoculations, for treatment your allergies and assist you to have allergy free days. The lovely news with allergies is that there are many options for controlling them properly. If you assume that you are suffering from some type of reaction to a certain matter, talk to your physician about your choices in allergy treatment.

Allergies disturb more than twenty percent of the adults and children in the United States, which means that millions of people are afflicted each year by various allergies. Allergies can affect people at different times of life, and during different seasons, subject on the cause of the reaction. There are a number of distinct perpetrators that can cause an allergic reaction in people, including pollen, dust mites, mold and foods. If you come to realize that you are suffering from allergies, you might want to make an appointment with your local allergist or your family physician to find out what you are allergic to and what your best alternative in treatment plans are.

Allergies are largely inherited, which means that if one or both of your parents suffer from allergies, you have a good possibility of aquiring them also. The allergen can vary however, so you cannot think that because your mom is allergic to dust, you will be also. You may instead develop a reaction to pollen or mold. The inherited link is plainly in whether or not you are susceptible to developing an allergy. Another possible reason for developing a reaction to a individual material is introduction to that substance when your immune system has been debilitated. For case in point, many people can develop a allergic reaction after a virus-related infection or even during pregnancy.

Categories: Allergies

Allergies – Quality Of Life

March 29, 2007 · 1 Comment

By: Michael Russell
 
Having allergies isn’t simply a matter of sneezing once in a while during the day. If it was then nobody would make too big a deal about them. But the truth is, allergies can greatly affect our quality of life depending on what type of allergy we have and how severe the symptoms.

Let’s start with the most common allergy, hay fever. Millions of people suffer from hay fever but few really understand how terrible this allergy can be. Going outside and breathing in pollen that starts us sneezing and wheezing is only part of the problem. In itself, that’s bad enough. But what about the person who doesn’t have a nice comfortable job inside an air conditioned office? This is the poor guy who’s maybe a landscaper or gardener. These people work outdoors for a living. What are they supposed to do? If their symptoms are severe enough where medication brings little or no relief they have two options. Continue to suffer and possibly miss many days of work or find a new line of work. If this sounds drastic, it isn’t. Sadly, many people lose their jobs because of medical problems, allergies being among the more common.

For the person who works indoors, they are not always so lucky either. Many people have allergies to indoor mold which is very common in old buildings, especially old schools. There was a recent documented case in Irvington, NJ where the mold situation in the high school was so bad that one teacher became ill enough that she had to leave her job until the situation was rectified.

This is even worse for people with allergies to mold who live in old homes. Many times when the problem gets out of control the person has to sell his home or move out of his apartment. Mold is not an easy thing to get rid of if it has spread far enough and if it does get out of control many times people are forced from their homes. This isn’t just a minor quality of life change.

It isn’t just people with indoor and outdoor allergies who have their quality of life affected. People with food allergies or sensitivities have their lives sometimes drastically altered. Many people suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome because of allergies to certain foods and because of this either miss time from work or spend a good part of the day at work in the bathroom. In either case these people are forced to give up their jobs because they can’t do them dependably.

But it isn’t just work that gets the worst of it with allergies. Many fathers with young sons are unable to go outside and play ball with their kid because of hay fever. Others can’t go on that vacation with the rest of the family because they have to be close to a bathroom at all times because of food allergies.

The sad fact is, people with allergies suffer greatly. And it’s not just a little sneezing during the day.

Categories: Allergies

Allergies – What Causes Them?

March 29, 2007 · Leave a Comment

By: Michael Russell
 
In this article we’re going to discuss what causes allergies and why some people are more prone to suffer from allergies than others.

The first thing we need to understand is what an allergy is. An allergy is a reaction to something outside the body that the body itself feels is a threat to it. More specifically, this is the immune system.

The truth of the matter is, everybody has allergies in as much as the body is always going to view outside agents such as pollen, grass, weeds, and even foods as invaders. The difference between someone who “suffers” from allergies and someone who doesn’t is the degree to which the body reacts or in the case of sufferers, overreacts to the allergen.

For example, let’s take hay fever season where the pollen count is especially high and have two people walk out into the street. The person who has a normal immune system and doesn’t overreact to every outside allergen will probably not even notice that the pollen count is high. There will be no itching, sneezing, watering of the eyes or any symptoms whatsoever. The person who has an overactive immune system, at least to this particular type of allergen, will begin to sneeze. Maybe the eyes will start to water. In severe cases the person may even have trouble breathing, all because their immune system is viewing the pollen as a great threat.

So the question is, why do some people have immune systems that behave normally and others have immune systems that overreact? Studies show that in most cases this is because these people are genetically disposed to reacting in such a manner. Maybe they inherited this particular predisposition from their mother or father. Maybe it even skipped a generation, but in most cases this is simply inherited.

In other cases, allergies are not inherited. In these cases the person’s immune system does not work correctly or is weakened because of some other condition. Maybe they are a poor eater and thus aren’t getting the nutrition they need to stay healthy. This can weaken the immune system and cause it to behave erratically. In other cases the weakened immune system is caused by another underlying problem such as an inability of the body to absorb a certain protein or amino acid.

In either case, the immune system becomes what we call “hyperactive”. This results in the immune system identifying quite harmless substances as enemies and then reacts totally out of proportion to the threat itself. In some cases the reaction can be severe enough to cause some serious health problems. Yes, people can die from allergies so this is not something to be taken lightly.

Many people believe that if there is a genetic disposition to allergies then there is nothing that can do to solve the problem. This is actually not so. There are many things a person can naturally do to build up their immune system so that allergies are no longer a problem. These will be covered in future articles.

Categories: Allergies

Hello world!

March 29, 2007 · 1 Comment

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

Categories: Uncategorized