Are you tired of dealing with your allergies? Perhaps you have seasonal allergies that leave you constantly congested and blowing your nose so you can breathe. Maybe you had a food allergy when you were younger and simply no longer eat the offending food. You may wonder if you’ll ever outgrow your allergy.
Board-certified otolaryngologist Dr. Nilesh Patel diagnoses and treats allergies. Dr. Patel helps relieve the symptoms that keep you from enjoying life.
When you’re allergic to a substance, your immune system misfires. Your body perceives the substance as a dangerous invader. You produce antibodies that stay on the lookout for it. When you come into contact with it again, the antibodies go into overdrive, releasing chemicals that produce your allergy symptoms.
Allergies have a genetic component. If a close family relative has allergies, you’re more likely to have them, too. More children have allergies than adults, but you can become allergic at any point in your life. If you have asthma, you’re also at higher risk for allergies.
You might lose your reaction to an allergen or have milder symptoms as you age, but it’s not a given. You also might become allergic to a new substance as an adult. There are many types of allergens.
Following are some common types of allergies.
Seasonal or other environmental allergies can make you miserable. Your nose may be constantly congested so you have trouble breathing. You may have a runny nose and need a tissue handy all the time. Your eyes may itch, water, or become red with a condition called allergic conjunctivitis.
Other environmental allergies such as an allergy to latex, an insect, an animal, or other substance can also make you miserable, and even produce life-threatening symptoms.
Perhaps you had eczema as a child and still are prone to breakouts. Your skin itches, cracks, and even bleeds if you scratch too hard.
You may have gotten hives or experienced anaphylaxis or cramps and vomiting as a child from a food allergy. Perhaps you needed to carry an EpiPen®. Now you’re careful not to come into contact with that particular food.
You may have gotten a sick, dizzy feeling from an antibiotic your doctor prescribed, so you had to discontinue it. It could even cause hives or anaphylaxis.
Dr. Patel performs complete blood and skin allergy testing to determine exactly which substances cause an allergic reaction.
Depending on what substances produce your reaction, Dr. Patel may prescribe a steroid or antihistamine spray, oral antihistamines or decongestants, or a leukotriene inhibitor. Leukotrienes are inflammatory chemicals that can cause lung inflammation and narrow your airway.
Perhaps you got a food allergy diagnosis as a child, and now you’re wondering whether you’ve outgrown it.
First, you get a blood and skin test. If the results show you don’t have the allergy, you perform a supervised food challenge. During this in-office test, you eat a very small bite of the offending food. If you don’t have a reaction, you eat another, larger bite. If you’re able to eat a complete serving of the food without a reaction, you’ve outgrown it.
