Its the Season of Sneezing!

It’s that time of year when sneezing, running nose itchy and running eyes are common. These bodies respond is due to allergies. According to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 54.3 percent of Americans have allergies. (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.htm) What are allergies? Allergies are abnormal immune system reactions to things that are typically harmless to most people. When you're allergic to something, your immune system mistakenly believes that there’s a harmful substance in your body. To protect your body the immune system produce IgE antibodies to allergens. (Allergens are substances that cause allergic reaction; food, dust, pollen, medicines). Then the body starts to produce a specific antibody called IgE, known as immunoglobulin, to bind to the allergen. Those antibodies then cause certain cells in the body to release chemicals into the bloodstream, one of which is histamine.  Histamine causes most of the symptoms of an allergic reaction.

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There are no cures for allergies or prevention. Allergies are usually heritable. There are medications to subside the symptoms. The most common allergy control medications known as antihistamines. It blocks the histamine reducing agents in the allergic reaction and alleviates much of the sneezing and coughing. Many of these are sold over the counter, the best example being Benadryl. There’s something known as allergy shots also referred to as allergen immunotherapy. By receiving these injections of small amounts of an allergen, your body can gradually develop non-allergen antibodies and undergo other immune system changes that help reduce the reaction to that allergen.

 

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Recently  Europe has been using  "sublingual immunotherapy, the practice of gradually desensitizing the immune system to allergens by administering allergen extract droplets under the tongue." Treating allergies even though this practice has been proven to subsidize allergies the United States Food and Drug Administration has not approve this practice. (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/03/27/under-the-tongue-droplets-could-cure-allergies/)

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