Food allergies occur when our immune systems mistakenly perceive certain foods as potentially dangerous and attack them with antibodies that trigger hives, swelling in the mouth or throat and difficulty breathing.
People with food allergies must be wary about what they eat and maintain an emergency supply of injectable epinephrine for emergencies. Furthermore, it’s important to inform key members in their life of their condition.
Avoiding the Food
Diet is one of the key ways to prevent food allergy reactions; unfortunately it’s often difficult. Food allergies occur when our immune systems mistakenly perceive certain foods as potentially harmful and produce antibodies in response. A severe allergy could result in hives, swelling in mouth or throat and breathing difficulties (anaphylaxis).
Many restaurants do not take adequate measures to prevent cross-contamination, making it easy to end up with food that contains an allergen. Always request that your meal is made without it and mention any allergies when placing your order; additionally ensure all foods are stored separately, using clean utensils and equipment each meal, washing dishes after every use and covering allergy-safe foods in plastic to protect from being exposed by cleaning utensils or cooking oil splatter.
Items other than food such as medications, cosmetics and vaccines may contain ingredients known to trigger food allergies. Call the manufacturer of any such products you take; or speak to school and daycare staff as well as parents of their friends about food allergies in general and make sure they know about any relevant ones your child may have. Educate everyone who may come in contact with him/her about how best to respond should an allergic reaction occur.
Managing the Allergy
Food allergies occur when your immune system misidentifies certain food proteins as threats and releases antibodies (known as immunoglobulin E or IgE proteins) to combat them. As soon as you eat any type of allergenic food, even in small amounts, your immune system releases chemicals such as histamine into your bloodstream. These chemicals may cause symptoms like hives and swelling or may even result in anaphylaxis – a severe and life-threatening reaction affecting skin, respiratory tract and gastrointestinal tract – with milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soya wheat fish being among the most popular allergens. Your family history appears to play a factor when it comes to whether you develop food allergies; having other allergies like hay fever or eczema increases this risk further.
Your care team may suggest not only avoiding foods to which you are allergic, but also carrying an auto-injector such as EpiPen or Auvi-Q in case of severe reactions. They will teach you how to identify and treat symptoms.
Your care team will begin by gathering a thorough history of your symptoms. They will want to know when, why and how your symptoms have started affecting you daily activities. They may then perform food allergy testing using either skin tests or blood tests designed to measure IgE antibodies against suspected allergens. Furthermore, an oral food challenge may also be conducted under medical supervision in which increasing amounts of the food suspect are fed over time in an attempt to determine whether you experience a reaction.
Preventing Reactions
Avoidance is the key to protecting against food allergies for both you and your child, whether dining out or attending parties. Also be sure to inform friends, family and school staff of your allergy in order to minimize potential reactions.
Food allergies develop when your immune system recognizes certain foods as potentially invading invaders and produces antibodies to fight them off. When you reintroduce that food to your diet, its allergen binds with antibodies produced against it and tells cells in your body to release chemicals into tissues causing symptoms like itching and swelling.
No one knows exactly why food allergies exist; however, they often run in families. Allergists can diagnose these allergies by keeping an eye on symptoms and conducting skin tests; in addition to this they may suggest performing food challenge tests to see if someone has outgrown any allergies they previously had.
Food allergies are more likely to strike children than adults, though anyone can develop them at any age. Individuals can suffer mild to severe reactions ranging from minor irritation to potentially life-threatening anaphylaxis which impairs breathing, causes blood pressure drops dramatically and alters the heartbeat rate – this makes food allergies serious matters and those with them should always carry emergency epinephrine shots such as Adrenaclick, Auvi-Q or EpiPen for treatment in case they experience anaphylactic shock.
Treating Reactions
Food allergies can cause symptoms like hives, abdominal discomfort, wheezing, difficulty breathing and a drop in blood pressure (anaphylaxis). An allergic reaction can be life-threatening. If someone experiencing food allergy experiences severe symptoms should seek emergency medical help immediately at a hospital and/or carry injectable epinephrine for emergency use.
People with food allergies should read all labels carefully. They should avoid foods containing their allergen, as well as those which state, “may contain…” or are produced on equipment which also manufactures it, “Contains:”, or “Uses:”, since these could have been produced using similar machinery as those containing their allergy.
Food allergies in children may subside over time. But some, like peanut and nut allergies, may persist permanently and need monitoring by your physician over time to see whether they subside or worsen.
Allergy testing usually involves a skin test in which a doctor scratches your arm or back with small amounts of potential allergens and watches for any reaction. They may also conduct an oral food challenge wherein increasing quantities of the potential allergen are consumed under medical supervision at either their office or hospital – this test can detect mild reactions as well as potentially detect more serious ones like anaphylaxis.
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