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Allergies
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Allergy In Children
Allergic diseases in children traditionally affect the lung (asthma),
the skin (atopic dermatitis, the most common form of eczema), and the
nasal passages (allergic rhinitis). The following are some interesting
tidbits about these illnesses.
* Estimates from a skin test survey suggest that allergies affect 40 to
50 million people in the U.S.A.
* Six million children in the United States have seasonal allergic
rhinitis.
* Two million children have atopic dermatitis. This is the most common
skin condition in children under eleven years of age.
* Allergies have a strong genetic predilection. The likelihood of a
child developing allergic disease is 1 in 4 if one parent has allergies
and 2 in 3 if both parents have allergies.
Allergies may be seasonal or chronic depending upon the exposure to the
allergen. An allergy may be influenced by factors such as emotional
stress, fatigue, infection, air pollution, and weather changes that can
cause day to day variation in the severity of symptoms. These
triggering factors add to what doctors call the "allergic load," the
amount of allergens the body can tolerate at any given time without the
occurrence of symptoms.
What is an allergy?
Normally your immune system's lymphocytes (white blood cells) travel to all parts of the body scanning the outside of proteins for chemical signatures. If it finds an invading protein, then the white blood cell returns to a lymph node where it becomes a plasma cell and generates antibodies to destroy that specific protein.
An allergy sufferer has a genetic defect that causes the white blood cells to misidentify protein and overreact to a foreign substance. If a person with a seafood allergy eats seafood, the white blood cells mistakenly think that the body is being invaded and produces many times more antibodies than are needed to fight the invaders. |
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