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An allergy is a reaction of the body to an irritating substance. The term allergy means "strange or altered reaction." It refers to a condition when the body is hyper or overly sensitive to various substances so that the tissues respond in an abnormal way. Many of these abnormal reactions are expressed in the skin and mucous membranes but they are affected by changes throughout the body.
Allergies are puzzling diseases even to our modern medicine. These diseases can skip from the nose in hay fever, to the skin in hives and eczema, to the brain in migraine headaches, and to the respiratory system in asthma. This makes it difficult to explain the underlying causes.
Perhaps the most puzzling part is that one person can be allergic to a substance and yet another is not.
There are two types of allergy, the atopic and the non atopic. The atopic is the hereditary type which can run in families and can manifest itself in digestive disturbances and food allergies. It can also appear in skin allergies such as hives or eczema, in nasal allergies of hay fever and brain allergies of migraine headache. The non atopic or acquired allergies are represented by allergies to serum or vaccine, to drugs such as aspirin, to chemicals such as antibiotics, to contact such as hair, pollen, and cosmetics, to infectious diseases such as those caused by bacteria and worms, and to physical conditions such as exposure to heat and cold.
Depending on the part of the body affected the symptoms of allergy can vary. So often the symptoms of allergy are confused with symptoms of other disorders. Sometimes the skin will become red or break out with eruptions or a rash. A person may do a great deal of wheezing, or sneezing or his nose may clog. Sometimes his breathing can be difficult or the nose and eyes can itch. The mucous membranes of the eyes, throat and nose can become inflamed and give off a watery discharge. Sometimes there can be digestive upsets, loss of taste, hearing, smell or headaches. The symptoms can be weak or strong depending on the day, the weather conditions in the area, the seasons or even the conditions under which he lives.
Sometimes a small amount of a protein substance (the allergen), such as the pollen from ragweed, passes through the mucous membrane of your nose into the blood and acts as an antigen. This will cause antibodies to be produced by your body cells against the antigen, thus you are sensitized to that particular allergen.
Sometimes a doctor cannot easily diagnose a certain allergy. In a number of cases for example as in a skin rash, it has no relation to an allergy. When you go to a doctor be sure to have information that will be of help to him, such as: when was the offset of the allergy, where did the attack occur, how frequent, time of year, or what had you eaten before the attack. He will ask you about your home, mattress, rugs, pillows, etc. You might think he is asking unnecessary questions but all of the information he gathers will help him in his quest for the reason for the allergy. He will also use a skin patch or scratch test in which extracts of suspected allergens are applied to the skin. If he gets a positive reaction to an allergen by a reddened area or a blister then he has determined the cause of the allergy. This could require as many as thirty different skin tests.
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