Allergies, What Causes the Effect?

Part 1

Your eyes are red your nose is runny, you’re sneezing and sniffling a sad victim of symptoms. There seems to be more and more out there suffering the signs and symptoms of allergies and most don’t even know what is really causing it. Just what is an allergy?

The word allergy was coined by Austrian pediatrician, Clemens von Pirquet back in 1906, from the Ancient Greek words, allos which means “other” and ergon meaning “reaction“. Pirquet noticed that some patients, upon receiving a second injection of horse serum or smallpox vaccine had quicker, more severe reactions than they had with the first injection.

An allergy is an overreaction of the immune system when it feels threatened by a protein of a food, a bee sting, a drug (like penicillin), or an airborne mold or pollen. If the body views this environmental input as an invader it releases an overload of histamines in response. This can create symptoms as simple as a runny nose, itchy eyes, hives and general swelling to more severe reactions such as vomiting, diarrhea, quickened heart rate and trouble breathing and even possibly a loss of consciousness due to a drop in the patient’s blood pressure. This is called anaphylaxis shock.

Even though, there are different ways to identify the culprits. Skin testing appears to be the favorite form of analysis primarily because several allergens can be tested at the same time.

Small amounts of specific allergens are administered to the skin usually on the forearm, upper arm, or the back. The skin is pricked so the allergen goes underneath the surface. The site is closely watched for signs of a reaction on the skin. These signs are usually seen within 15-20 minutes and are typically, a swelling and redness on the site. The reaction time and the size of the reaction will determine the amount of sensitivity that the patient has to that particular allergen.

Skin testing for food allergens can also be done, however, the test can appear negative even if you or your pet are actually allergic to egg white.
This is due to a partial protein called a hapten. When you ingest any food allergen, a partial protein called a hapten can join that food and cause a severe reaction…

Unlike a true antigen, it does not induce the formation of antibodies by itself alone. A hapten needs to bond to a carrier protein before it can induce an immune response that is a different from the allergy protein that is being tested for. Sometimes the hapten can even block immune response to the hapten-carrier adduct by preventing the adduct from binding to the antibody.

Once these allergens are identified a specific serum is produced and given in subcutaneous injections on a strict time table. This is thought to create blocking antibodies within the patient which prevent an over reaction to those certain allergens.

If this works for you or your pet, great, however, don’t just stop there. How are you going to keep yours or their systems from developing sensitivities to other allergens when you are actually only treating the signs or symptoms (the effects) and not the actual cause of these over-reactions? You need to determine what causes the immune system to overreact in the first place.

We’ll look into that in…Allergies, What Causes the Effect? Part 2

Yours in Health,
David Spangenburg & The HPN Team

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• Health Tip: Testing for Allergies (nlm.nih.gov)
• Free Onsite Allergy Lab (slideshare.net)

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Tagged as: Allergen, allergens, Allos, Bee Sting, Culprits, Environmental Input, Food Allergens, Forearm, Greek Words, Heart Rate, Histamines, Horse Serum, Loss Of Consciousness, Overreaction, Penicillin, Reaction Time, runny nose, Smallpox Vaccine, Symptoms Of Allergies, Trouble Breathing, Upper Arm