The Briefing Room
General Category => Health/Education => Topic started by: rangerrebew on July 20, 2017, 12:38:43 pm
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Allergy or Sensitivity? The Answer Could Save Your Life
By Everyday Health Guest Columnist
Soon after I moved to Lexington, Kentucky, to begin residency training, I found myself at the pool one day with both eyes watering and beginning to swell shut. I had never had allergies before moving to the Bluegrass region, but I soon learned that my body was sensitive to high pollen counts — I have what most refer to as seasonal allergies.
The word “allergy” is confusing because many people use it as a fully encompassing generic term for true allergic reactions and nonallergic adverse reactions, also called sensitivities.
http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/health-answers/allergy-sensitivity-answer-could-save-your-life/
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It's an interesting article, and helped explain why I absolutely cannot drink milk or eat ice cream but don't generally have much of a problem with cheese.
It did leave me with a couple of questions, though. At what point does a sensitivity become an allergy?
A sensitivity, as opposed to an allergy, happens gradually and isn’t life-threatening.
The peanut allergy that Son #5 developed occurred gradually. At first, he would just have some very minor swelling of his upper lip a few hours after he ate peanuts. As he continued to indulge over the next weeks and months, the swelling got much worse and eventually he had swelling and hives within a very short period of time after eating them. I mega-dosed him with Benadryl, but when we saw the doctor he said we definitely should have used an Epi-Pen on him. Live and learn ...
In any case, according to the chart in the article, he started out with a sensitivity; however, there's no doubt that he now has a full-blown allergy, including reactions to items without nuts but have been "manufactured on the same equipment which processes nuts".
(http://images.agoramedia.com/EHBlogImages/health-answers/2015/03/EH_Allergy_vs_Sensitivity_v2.jpg)
Oh, and also ... Welcome to the Ohio Valley, Doctor:
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