The term allergy originated in 1906 when a Viennese pediatrician named Clemens von Pirquet observed that some of his patients were extremely sensitive to certain foods and various substances, such as dust and pollen. The doctor called this condition as “allergy”, from the Greek words “allos” (meaning, other) and “ergon” (meaning, work).

Earlier doctors believed that allergy symptoms were caused by a malfunction of the antibody called Immunoglobulin. However, later studies showed that various disease mechanisms affect these symptoms.

Today, billions of people worldwide suffer from allergy symptoms from different sources of foods and substances. Allergies are considered one of the leading causes of chronic diseases.

There are different kinds of allergens, each with unique allergy symptoms. These include plant pollens (such as birch trees, ragweed, rye grass and timothy grass), mold spores, medications (penicillin, salicylates, local anesthetics, sulfonamides), insect stings (bee venom, wasp sting), animal allergens (dust mite, dander, animal hair, cockroach calyx), latex products and foods (nuts, seafood, egg whites, sesame, soy, milk, wheat, corn, peas, soybeans, beans and other legumes).

Diagnosis And Treatment Of Allergies

Since there are dozens of possible sources of allergy symptoms, proper diagnosis can be a difficult process. For this reason, doctors use several methods in assessing allergens and arriving at an accurate diagnosis.

Skin tests are usually the first laboratory exam a doctor performs in all kinds of allergies such as milk allergies. Using the prick-test method, small amounts of the suspected causes or allergens (pollen, dander, drops of milk, nut extracts, etc) are applied to the patient’s skin. When a patient experiences allergy symptoms, such as itching, reddening or swelling, within an hour after application, he or she is truly allergic to the product. The patient should keep away from these substances or foods as much as possible.

Although the skin test is the most preferred method in spotting the causes of allergy symptoms, it still has some drawbacks. While most people experience itching or swelling immediately after direct contact or intake of a product, other people may display the allergy symptoms several hours or even days after the skin test. Proper treatment to reduce symptoms is important because some allergies can be fatal, with or without physical signs.

Although different kinds of allergies affect people, one thing remains the same – medical treatments for allergies are not available to cure these conditions. Instead, they are only used in reducing inflammation, rashes, hives or other allergy symptoms. The best factor for the healing process of allergies is still the removal of food or substance sources from your home, office and other areas in which contact with the harmful allergens is likely.

What Is an Allergy Symptom?

In this brief article, we will define an allergy symptom and discuss some specific systems and what they mean to you as an allergy sufferer. An allergy symptom is any symptom associated with allergies such as a running nose, itchy eyes, watery eyes, sneezing, itchy skin, and more. We will go into some detail about where a symptom comes from and why they appear as well as a brief discussion about how to cure those symptoms if time permits.

What are some of the symptoms?

Some of the most common allergy symptoms occur for the seasonal allergies such as hay fever and include the itchy watery eyes, runny nose, and sneezing aspects of allergenic symptoms. Other cases of allergies feature more serious symptoms that can be more harmful and troublesome such as absentmindedness, dizziness, trouble swallowing, nausea, constipation, diarrhea, skin rashes, vertigo, vomiting, and other serious cases of health issues that may spring from how the body deals with the allergen itself.

Airborne allergies are, however, the most common form of allergies and tend to feature the most common form of an allergy symptom as well. Most of these symptoms are related to the sinuses as the hay fever and other allergies like hay fever tend to affect those systems of the body. Sneezing, a clogged and runny nose, itchiness in the eyes and throat, coughing, postnasal drip, and swollen eyes (a symptom called “conjunctivitis”) are all parts of the airborne allergy symptom repertoire.

Why do these symptoms occur?

Most times, the allergic reaction is coupled with a portion of the allergen. In other words, if the allergen is known for entering the lungs it will likely attack portions of the body related to the lungs and to breathing. An airborne allergy, thus, will likely attach itself to the breathing apparatus and my cause coughing or the nose to run because of the way it affects the system directly. There are other reasons for this that scientists studying allergy immunology are aware of, but the basics of most allergies are that they are “system attackers” in general.

How are the symptoms cured?

An allergy symptom can be cured in a number of ways depending on the actual system it affects and how drastically the body is affected. Many people can simply take, for example, an antihistamine for a hay fever type allergy and go about their day while others simply will not respond to the antihistamine. It is essentially a matter of the biological makeup of the allergy sufferer in terms of how they react to certain medications and how much medication is needed to cure the allergy symptom.