Allergy 101 -- What You Need To Know
From:
Jill Daniel
139 days 14 hours 44 minutes ago
"An allergy is an immune response, within the body, to a substance, which is not necessarily harmful to the body, but results in symptoms that cause a great deal of discomfort and distress."
Millions of people suffer from various alleries every year. So Glam sat down with Dr. Raffi Tachdjian, MD, MPH to get to the bottom of the basics. Dr. Tachdjian is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine, where his research focus is on asthma and allergic inflammation. He has a private practice where he consults for adults and children at 'Allergy and Clinical Immunology Medical Group' in Santa Monica, CA. He also is a member of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
Q: What is an allergy?
A: An allergy is essentially the body’s way of reacting to something that it recalls having experienced in the environment--and by the environment. This can be anything from pollen to animal dander, to food. So the body recognizes these ‘allergens’ through the lungs, nose, eyes, skin, or mouth…It is an immune response, within the body, to a substance, which is not necessarily harmful to the body, but results in an symptoms that cause a great deal of discomfort and distress. An allergy is an example of your immune system gone awry.
Q: What is an allergic reaction and what happens during that?
A: An allergic reaction is the body’s physical response to the allergen[The substance that causes an allergic response is known as an allergen]. In the typical allergic response, a person's immune system produces an antibody ("IgE") to attack the allergens. This leads to various outcomes in the body…it can be anything from sneezing to runny nose, itchy and watery eyes, a rash, and even coughing and wheezing. Sometimes this can be severe enough to cause life-threatening asthma or anaphylaxis.
Q: What are the most common allergens?
A: The most common ones are pollen from trees and grasses and ragweed, house dust mites, cats, dogs, insects such as bees and ants. You can also have allergies to foods such as milk, soy, eggs, seafood, and of course peanuts.
Q: Are there certain times of year where certain allergies are most common?
A: Tree pollen allergies are most common in springtime.
The grass allergies are most prevalent in summer and in the fall, it’s ragweed season.
Q: How do you diagnose allergies?
A: Doctors diagnose allergies by first doing a physical exam. This includes looking into a patient’s eyes, nose, throat and skin. A physician can usually tell if your congestion is from a sinus infection or if it is from allergies. You may be referred to an allergist so that he or shecan diagnose allergies by skin tests and/or blood tests.
Q: What is involved in the skin test?
A: The skin acts as a representative of the immune system. You can scratch a number of various allergens suspected to see if the body produces a reaction or not on the skin. The skin prick test introduces a tiny amount of allergen into the skin that is quite safe. If your immune system recognizes the allergen, you get a reaction in about 15 minutes time. With a positive reaction to an allergen the skin becomes itchy within a few minutes and then becomes red and swollen with a "wheal", an area of skin that rises, along with a flare or redness surrounding it. It looks like a welt.
Q. What’s the difference in the skin test versus the blood test?
A: The skin test is more sensitive, it is more likely to detect a reaction. The blood test is more specific…if it picks up something you’re allergic to, then it means that you definitely have a reaction to that specific allergen. Sometimes we do both tests to confirm what a patient is allergic to.
Q: Do you find that women are more predisposed to certain allergies than men are?
A: There is evidence that women tend to be hospitalized longer for asthma attacks. And what's interesting is that during the perimenstrual time (the time right around menstrual periods), allergic reactions are heightened, or exaggerated. So yes, women are a little more susceptible during that time. What’s also interesting is that certain reactions of the immune system are decreased during pregnancy.
Q: Why do people get allergies?
A: Basically, it’s an overly or unnecessarily reactive immune system and it is partially explained by the person's genes. If your parents had allergies, there’s a better chance that you will too and also pass that onto your children. I have been studying asthma and allergy in various populations, and some of the most definitive causes are the genetic variations of individuals, along with air pollution. By air pollution I mean emission from smog as well as increases in pollen counts. Our deteriorating environment is acting on our genes to wreak havoc on our immune system.
Q. Is there a time period when you are most susceptible to allergies and when you’re mostly beyond developing new ones?
A: Yes, most people peak in their allergies by the time they’re in their twenties and thirties. After that age, you can be pretty confident that you aren’t going to develop severe allergies anymore. Hardly anyone comes in past their sixties complaining of a new allergy because the immune system has started to weaken by then, and it does not overly react.
Q: Does stress play a role in people developing allergies?
A: Most definitely. Stress can be measured through various measures including pain, anxiety, and a decrease in activities of daily living…and whenever that system is turned on, it is hyper-aroused. In other words, your immune system is in hyper-mode when you are stressed. Hives is an example of this…people have a romantic breakup or lose a job and break out in hives, it’s an allergic reaction to stress with no underlying cause over half of the time. I always recommend to my patients that stress-prevention is a key to reduce or even prevent from getting severe allergies in the first place.
Q: How are allergies treated?
A: For environmental substances as well as food allergies, avoidance is the main way. If you have dust mite allergies, you can get dust mite mattress covers, for example. If you are allergic to animal dander, you can get a HEPA filter. And then you can also treat allergies with nasal steroids (sprays) and antihistamines (taken orally). The only way to cure the allergy however, is to get allergy shots.
Q: Which allergies that can be deadly?
A: Bee venom and foods, particularly peanut allergies are the biggest ones. If you’ve had an allergic reaction to either of these, you need to see an allergist for de-sensitizing treatments. Bee venom is given to a patient in a super-low fraction of a dose and slowly built it up so that you build a tolerance to it. Sensitization to peanut allergy is a fascinating area of research. The Chinese eat a lot more peanuts than us, but they boil rather than roast them. But this is not the entire reason for the recent increase in peanut and now even sesame allergy. I think we'll have more light shed on this phenomenon in the next few years. The most important thing for the patients to do if they are allergic to bee venom, peanuts, or any allergen that is life-threatening is to carry an epinephrine pin. This is something that can be prescribed by not just the allergist, but should be prescribed by any physician suspecting anaphylactic reactions or severe allergies.
If interested in more Dr. Tachdjian's information and advice, visit him at sneezewheeze.com.
