Food allergies are an adverse immunological response in your body that cause it to treat harmless foods as life-threatening agents, with possible symptoms including hives, trouble breathing and even anaphylaxis (an potentially life-threatening shock reaction).
Learn the facts about food allergies and how best to manage them. Always read labels when eating out or at home where foods could contain allergens that could trigger your allergic response.
What is an Allergy?
When people think of allergies, many associate it with symptoms such as sneezing, runny nose and watery eyes. But allergies are much more than this – they can affect your digestive tract (gut), skin, lungs or respiratory system in a serious manner. Allergies arise because your immune system mistakenly perceives something harmful as harmful and reacts accordingly – in effect leading to unnecessary discomfort for you.
Food allergies occur when our immune systems mistake a certain food as being dangerous and release chemicals to combat it, leading to symptoms like itching, rash and difficulty breathing – potentially even leading to life-threatening episodes known as anaphylaxis.
Knowing if you have a food allergy is important because it can disrupt daily routines, social interactions and work performance. Furthermore, it can make food selection challenging in restaurants or social situations.
Allergies can be caused by foods containing proteins found in milk, eggs, peanuts, peanut butter, shellfish, soy and wheat products; drinks, medications or insect bites may also trigger allergies. While food allergies may last forever (e.g. containing fish sulfites benzoates or herbal remedies), most tend to diminish over time with time and can often be diagnosed using detailed history taking, blood tests and skin or oral food challenges conducted at an allergist center equipped with emergency medication available onsite.
Symptoms
Food allergies often manifest with symptoms like itchy hives or runny nose and eyes, wheezing, stomach cramps or pain, diarrhea or vomiting. More serious reactions could involve blood pressure dropping significantly and airway blockage (known as anaphylaxis ), which could potentially be life-threatening or lead to shock. People with food allergies should carry medical emergency kits containing an Epi-pen for treating severe allergic reactions in case one arises.
Immune systems provide protection from germs, but sometimes their defenses become overwhelmed by otherwise harmless food proteins and cause allergic reactions. Common foods that trigger such reactions include milk, eggs, wheat, soya bean products, fish shellfish and peanuts – typically within two hours after indulging in said offending food products; but reactions may appear any time thereafter.
Food allergies are more likely to strike children than adults, though anyone can develop one. While milk and egg allergies often outgrow, peanut and tree nut allergies often remain long after people outgrow them; those suffering from other allergic conditions like eczema or asthma may be at greater risk of having food allergies than other individuals.
Food allergy diagnosis tests include an allergy skin test and blood test. With the skin test, a health care provider applies liquid extracts of possible allergens to your arm or back and then pricks your skin to see whether there is any reaction.
Diagnosis
Your care professional will begin by gathering information about your symptoms and family history of food allergies or other health problems, then may conduct a physical exam; skin prick tests are the most reliable way of testing for food allergy. To perform this test, place a drop of liquid containing small quantities of the suspected allergen on either your arm or back and then prick it – if allergic, red, itchy bumps should appear around where the liquid touched your skin. Blood tests provide another means of measuring your immune system response. They measure levels of antibodies called immunoglobulin E (IgE), directed against specific foods. While less precise than skin prick tests, these blood tests may only be appropriate in certain instances.
If a food allergy causes an adverse reaction, it’s crucial that you or your child visit a healthcare professional immediately. Signs and symptoms could range from abdominal bloating and pain, facial swelling, difficulty breathing or sudden drop in blood pressure (anaphylaxis). Left untreated, anaphylaxis can even prove fatal.
Your healthcare provider may recommend conducting a food challenge test to confirm any food allergy. For this process, either you or your child must abstain from eating the suspected food for two weeks and then consume small amounts over several hours over several hours until a reaction occurs – in which case, an allergy will have been detected by testing.
Treatment
If you suffer from food allergies, it’s essential that you identify what foods trigger symptoms and learn which products contain it – check ingredient labels regularly. Furthermore, always carry emergency medication such as Epinephrine with you just in case of severe reactions.
Family history and other allergies such as hay fever or asthma may increase the likelihood that you’ll develop food allergy. Although more prevalent among children than adults, food allergy can affect people of all ages and races; black non-Hispanic children seem more prone than white children to developing it and it appears more frequently among women than men; its cause remains unknown.
Your healthcare provider may suggest performing a skin or blood test to identify which allergen is triggering your symptoms, or an oral food challenge where small but increasing doses are given over time in a doctor’s office or food challenge center, with emergency medicine on standby in case an allergic reaction develops.
Food allergy immunotherapy (OIT) is being studied as a possible method to prevent or treat food allergies. With OIT, increasing doses of your allergen are swallowed or placed under your tongue for several months until your immune system has desensitized to it and you can consume it without adverse reaction.
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