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Food Allergies
The following article includes pertinent information that may
cause you to reconsider what you thought you understood. The
most important thing is to study with an open mind and be willing
to revise your understanding if necessary.
Ever eaten something that made you break into rashes? How about
itchiness of the throat, around the eyes, your ears, and even
your hands and feet? These are actually symptoms of food allergies.
Food allergies are a condition where the body’s immune system
becomes hypersensitized. As a result of this hypersensitized
state, it mistakenly believes that food entering the body is
harmful and creates antibodies to counteract it. So, the next
time you eat that food, the immune system releases massive amounts
of these antibodies and other chemicals, including histamine,
as a protective measure against the “harmful” substance.
The release of these chemicals is what triggers your food allergies
to act up. The allergic symptoms could affect any part of the
body, but mostly the respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract,
skin, and the cardiovascular system. An estimated 11 million
Americans suffer from true food allergies, with symptoms ranging
from the mildly inconvenient to uncomfortable to complete collapse
of major organs of the body, a condition known as anaphylaxis.
Symptoms and Treatment
If you’ve had allergic reactions before, then you probably
are already familiar with the symptoms of food allergies. It
could range from a tingling sensation in the mouth, the swelling
of the tongue and the throat, difficulty breathing, hives, vomiting,
abdominal cramps, diarrhea, drop in blood pressure, and loss
of consciousness to death. Typically, the symptoms appear within
minutes or two hours after the person has eaten the food he or
she is allergic to.
I trust that what you've read so far has been informative. The
following section should go a long way toward clearing up any
uncertainty that may remain.
The best treatment to food allergies is strict avoidance of foods
you have allergic reactions to. There are no medications as of
yet that would totally cure food allergies. Your doctor would
probably prescribe drugs to treat the symptoms, but as to cure,
there is none so far. Epinephrine, also called “adrenaline,”
is the medication of choice for controlling a severe reaction.
Most people do outgrow their food allergies. However, peanuts,
nuts, fish, and shellfish are considered lifelong allergies.
Some research is currently being done in this area and the results
look promising.
Still, your best chance of overcoming food allergies is to avoid
foods that you are allergic to. It might help if you read ingredient
labels for all foods. If the food has no label, you should avoid
eating it all together. And if the label contains unfamiliar
terms, ask the manufacturer for a definition or avoid eating
that food.
Avoidance Method
Having food allergies doesn’t mean that you ought to stop
eating foods that you are otherwise not allergic to. Just because
you think you’re allergic to something doesn’t mean
that you really are allergic. Taking food out of your diet could
result in unbalanced diet, which could lead to other health problems.
In addition, you may reach a point where you become frustrated
because you think that everything you eat causes food allergies.
By avoidance, we don’t mean complete avoidance of foods.
Try to keep a food diary where you make a list of all the foods
that you’ve eaten for the day and whether or not you suffered
any allergies as a result. The information you garner from your
list could help you determine exactly what foods trigger what,
and could also give your doctor important information about your
food allergies.
Don\'t limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about
Food Allergies. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus
on what's important. |
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