Sunday, September 13, 2009

Developing An Allergy: A Few Things To Consider

By Roger Tavares

An allergy alludes to when some people might start to suffer reactions that are not normal and which occur after having come in contact with animal hair, dust as well as with pollen.

In addition, the abnormal and adverse reaction that occurs could also be attributed to consumption of certain foods, taking of specific drugs or from consuming different substances of which latex is a good example. As a matter of fact this condition is also known to be a type I hypersensitivity reaction that occurs following consumption of certain kinds of substances.

Asthma Is An Example

Asthma is a typical example of an allergy and it is in fact believed that about sixty percent of people that develop allergies also suffer from asthma. People that develop allergies will also usually notice inflammation of the nose and eyes as well as of the skin and sometimes, they may even experience pain in their ears. Even a headache, though not a typical allergy symptom, is also noticed, especially in the case of people that are allergic to drugs.

When having an allergy the influenced person will often also experience problems in respiring typically and the reason behind this is a constricted bronchia. Diagnosis of such a condition can take many different trails though only after tests are performed can the true cause be identified.

A skin prick test is perhaps the most effective of all allergy tests and this form of testing is in fact known to provide extremely exact results that cannot be achieved by other forms of testing. It is also a procedure that costs little and is easy to perform.

A skin prick test requires the patient to have their skin pricked as well as marked with special kind of ink. Of course, the ink used must have been tested beforehand to ensure that it will not be the cause of a new allergic reaction. Following this, an allergen is introduced that is already known to make people develop an allergy.

It will only take another half hour before the reaction happens that in turn will show whether the person is allergic or not. In case the person is tested does develop an allergy it then requires to be treated with help from a steroid cream that must be administered over the affected area to provide immediate relief.

An allergy test can also be conducted by drawing a sample of the patient's blood to determine immunoglobulin E count.

It is sad yet true that there are an estimated fifty million Americans that require allergy relief for every day of the year because they are otherwise unable to come up with a solution that will help cure their allergy. However, chemotherapy has been found to be very useful in treating an allergy and using drugs such as epinephrine, antihistamines and cortisone are other good ways to treat an allergy.

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