The week aims to highlight the thingswe can
do to avoid household triggers to various allergies. As the
winter days arrive and we spend more time indoors, it is
important to make sure this time is as allergy-free as
possible.
With 1 in 4 people in the UK sufferingfrom
allergies, the risk of you suffering one way or another is pretty
high .And while hayfever sufferers might feel rubbish for the
duration of the summer,indoor allergens have the potential to
keep you miserable all year long!
One particular pest is the house dustmite
that can affect air quality indoors and cause side effects such
ascongestion, shortness of breath, itchy eyes, poor sleeping and
headaches.Learning how to control your environment can reduce the
effect they have eg. Washingbed line at 90 degrees can kill them,
a room temperature above 25 degrees willencourage house dust
mites to grow, causing air pollution indoors.
Or the fact we sweat a third of a litreof
water at night to provide the perfect environment for house dust
mites. Thiscan replicate mould effects and aggravate the side
effects of allergens.
Do you have pets? If so they could alsobe
part of the problem! Cats and digs for example, lick their fur
coatingthemselves all over in the allergen! Feathers can also be
a nuisance – so ifyou have a parrot or another type of bird
and feel particularly sneezy, thenyou might want to look no
further.
I was pleased this week to discuss my blog on the Devon Allergy
Clinic this week with its lead clinician, Marlene.
It was refreshing to have a mature chat with someone leading a
complimentry clinic that didn`t just settle into a pointless
argument and I was impressed by her approaching me to discuss
it.
Her training and diploma in Allergy are entirely
mainstream.
The area of food intolerance is however an area where many people
who suffer do feel the need to go seeking help. I
do recognize that in medicine we are not well equipped
at all to advise or help people with food intolerances and that
we do not have the answer a lot of the time. (I worked in 1993 in
MartinStern`s Allergy Clinic in Leicester and
understood from that time some of the difficulties see MAARA and the older, pretty much out
of date site of his now, AAIR).
This is therefore an area where people will seek help in other
directions an I feel they must be careful in judging the
qualities of the alternative help they seek.
Food allergy
sufferers `worst served` by medicine
People who
suffer from food allergies get some of the worst service from
doctors due to misleading test results, wrong diagnoses and poor
quality research. ByNick
Collins
Published: 9:00AM BST 17 May 2010
A review of research into the
affliction found that up to three in ten people claim to have a
food allergy of some sort, but blind testing reveals that fewer
than ten percent actually has one.
People were found to be
avoiding certain foods because they incorrectly suspected they
were allergic to them, while many parents refused to give their
children certain foods even though most will overcome their
allergies as they grow older.
The research, published
in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is
the first step in a plan by the US National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases to set out criteria for the diagnosis and
treatment of patients next month.
The most common allergies are
responses to cow`s milk, egg, peanuts, fish and shellfish.
According to the review, 3.5
per cent of people claim to be allergic to cow`s milk, while
testing suggested the figure was just 0.9 per cent.
However, with peanut
allergies, the number who claimed to be allergic, 0,75 per cent,
was exactly the same proportion revealed by testing.
Results showed that part of
the problem was a lack of understanding of the difference between
a food allergy – a response to food by the immune system
– and a food intolerance, which may be caused by substances
within the food or by a psychological trigger.
Dr Pamela Ewan,consultant
allergist at Addenbrooke`s Hospital, Cambridge,told The
Independent: "The chaos is massive in the UK. Doctors
untrained in allergy are having to pick up cases in
gastroenterology clinics,asthma clinics, dermatology clinics.
"People get the wrong
advice because the tests are not understood. The key problem is
that we haven`t got enough people who understand allergy. There
are 30consultants nationwide and just 12 training posts, not even
enough to replace those who are leaving."
Recent Questions:
Dear Marlene, I think I may have an intolerance to wheat & have asked my GP about testing & was told "there is no test".For a very long time I have had bad stomach bloating, indigestion etc. Scans produced gall stones. Last summer I developed bad hives, swollen lips & a cough. The former 2 were put down to an allergic reaction to blood pressure pills, however the cough persisted I usually cough until I'm sick or gagging & I'm wheezing away. A lung test proved all was well with the lungs & the nurse commentd that it all appeared to be high up in my chest & not down in the lungs anyway. I then read on the internet that a persistent cough could be a wheat allergy/intolerance (a celiac test proved negative). I have cut wheat out of my diet but if I give way & sometimes eat say a piece of bread sometimes I'm OK & then the next time I'm coughing again.When it's really bad my whole body is tingling, like pins & needles. IS there any test that could help me? Many thanks
Information on the Most Common Allergy Medications
Find out important patient information for the most common medications
used to treat allergies and asthma. Learn about what a medication is used for,
who shouldn`t take it, common side effects, and interactions with other
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