Category — Allergy

If you have bad allergies, then you are not alone. Each year, more people make trips to their doctors or to see allergists so that they can figure out how to combat their allergies. For many people, allergy problems do not become a problem until they are young adults in their teenage years or if they move from one geographic location to another.

For instance, when I was getting ready to move from New York to North Carolina to go to college, I was only in school for a short time before I started to have a lot of difficulty breathing. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that I was a part of the college’s cross country and track team. It was mid August, and I was outside running with the team when I started to feel as if I was suffocating. Panicked, I spoke to my coaches about how I was feeling, and they immediately set up an appointment for me with the doctor. After speaking with a doctor, I found out that it was common for people who have just moved to another state to experience allergic reactions to the things in their environment. For me, it turned out to be a combination of things- dust, oak pollen and ragweed.

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In this article we’re going to discuss what causes allergies and why some people are more prone to suffer from allergies than others. 

The first thing we need to understand is what an allergy is.  An allergy is a reaction to something outside the body that the body itself feels is a threat to it.  More specifically, this is the immune system. 

The truth of the matter is, everybody has allergies in as much as the body is always going to view outside agents such as pollen, grass, weeds, and even foods as invaders.  The difference between someone who "suffers" from allergies and someone who doesn’t is the degree to which the body reacts or in the case of sufferers, overreacts to the allergen. 

For example, let’s take hay fever season where the pollen count is especially high and have two people walk out into the street.  The person who has a normal immune system and doesn’t overreact to every outside allergen will probably not even notice that the pollen count is high.  There will be no itching, sneezing, watering of the eyes or any symptoms whatsoever. 

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When we hear of allergy and asthma studies, we often find them lumpted together.  Is there really a connection between allergies and asthma?  To get to the answer to this, we must first learn what allergies and asthma actually are.

Allergies are immune system reactions to things that others would find harmless.  Certain foods, pollen, even dust are all considered allergens that can trigger an allergic reaction.  The immune system produces antibodies that release chemicals

Asthma is a chronic lung condition, characterized by difficulty in breathing due to extra sensitive or hyper-responsive airways. During an asthma attack, the airways become irritated and react by narrowing and constructing, causing increased resistance to airflow, and obstructing the flow of air to and from the lungs. Common early warning signs of asthma include fatigue, coughing (especially at night), wheezing, difficulty breathing, tightness in the chest, runny nose, and itchy throat.

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