The immune system serves to defend the body against external aggressors, especially bacteria, viruses and parasites. Allergy is an abnormal response of this immune system that perceives harmless substances such as pollens or dust as dangerous and attacks them.
The most frequent pathology of allergic cause is asthma, characterized by a sensation of choking, shortness of breath and “wheezing” in the chest. Asthma has a low mortality rate, but it affects more and more people, and experts predict an increase in the frequency of allergic diseases in general, and of asthma in particular, in the western world. This increase is attributed to industrialization, food additives and the decline of infectious and parasitic diseases, which used to monopolize the attention of the immune system.
The most common allergies
Allergic rhinitis and rhinoconjunctivitis are the best known allergic diseases, as they are talked about in the media every spring. It is caused by pollens and is manifested by sneezing, runny nose, itchy nose and eyes, and sometimes also nasal obstruction. Some rhinitis is suffered throughout the year, as it is due to perennial allergens such as mites or pet epithelia.
There are many inhalant antigens that can produce asthma or rhinitis, but as we have explained, the most frequent are dust mites and pollens (gramineae, parietaria, etc.) and, less frequently, pet epithelia and damp fungi.
There are also allergic pathologies affecting the skin: atopic dermatitis, contact dermatitis, urticaria, angioedema (swelling of the eyes, eyelids or lips) which may be due to an allergy to food or food additives and also to drugs.
Drug allergy in particular can lead to very severe anaphylactic shock, even resulting in death. Equally serious can be allergy to bee or wasp venom, as we have seen in the case of Pharaoh Menes.
What is the treatment of allergy?
The main treatment of an allergy is always to avoid the antigen that produces it and for this purpose a series of protective measures have been developed against mites, fungi and pollens, but almost never the antigen can be avoided completely and then it is necessary to use pharmacological medication appropriate to each case.
In the treatment of an allergy, immunotherapy, known as “therapeutic allergy vaccines”, which consists of injecting small doses of pollen or mites so that the organism “gets used” to them, should be highlighted. It usually gives very good results with mites, pollens or insect venom. It is the only etiological treatment (of the cause) that can be offered to the allergic patient. When it is well indicated and well controlled by the allergist, it is very effective and has very few side effects, since being a biological product, it does not have to be metabolized by the liver and excreted by the kidneys like the usual drugs.
I have tried in a few lines to explain all the pathology that can be due to an allergy, but in these diseases the maxim that “there are no diseases but sick people” is more true than in any other, and it is necessary to personalize in each case both the means of diagnosis and the treatment.