Allergies – Life in the Hatchoo Lane

If you have allergies, you live a difficult, often unpredictable life and need to take a lot of precautions. There are a hundred booby-traps within and beyond your home that you must recognize and avoid if unannounced sneezing, itchiness and breathing problems are part of your existence.

With allergies, food is one of the areas in which you need to be most vigilant. Certain allergic responses like anaphylaxis can be debilitating and even fatal, causing your airways to constrict. Foods that may evoke such a response in susceptible people include eggs, milk, peanut products, shellfish, fish, wheat and soy. Though some of these are no-nos for most allergy-prone people, there is really no saying what particular foodstuff can evoke an allergic reaction. If you have ever noticed yourself getting consistently short of breath, itchy or dizzy after a stand-up feast McDonald’s, you’re well on the way to identifying YOUR triggers.

The presence of allergens is not always immediately obvious. Some processed foods and special preparations can contain eggs, milk and peanuts. The safest bet, if you are ‘sensitized’ to these products, is to scan the container for key and ‘hidden’ ingredients. If in doubt, steer clear. If you’ve ever suffered an allergic reaction from any of these ingredients, this needs no emphasis. To avoid unannounced allergy attacks in the future, consult a doctor and try to isolate the foods that you need to give wide berth.

Food is not the only peril zone. As mentioned (and often experienced) one’s own home and garden can be an allergic person’s undoing. For instance, pets and certain garden plants can be a definite hazard and there is no real way around it. If you are an inveterate animal lover or gardener who is allergic to domestic pets or pollen/chlorophyll you should consult an allergies expert for desensitizing options. This involves gradually exposing your metabolism to the allergens in question till they evoke no reactions anymore.

If you are additionally allergic to house dust and mold, your home will need an unusual degree of sterility and cleanliness that may call for a dehumidifier to keep humidity (read mold spores) at the lowest possible level.

Beware of self-medication. Though your local chemist probably hands out such tablets to you without a prescription, antihistamines are the last and least preferable line of defense, since they work by disrupting at least some normal bodily functions. Though newer ones like Allegra (Fexofenadine HCl) provide non-sedating allergy relief, most others like chlorpheniramine are sleep inducing and have a variety of other undesirable side effects.