In one of my previous articles, I was talking about dog allergy. I’ve been asked by a reader how can a flea allergy be diagnosed in dogs?

First of all, let me tell you that allergic or not, no dog should have fleas as a general rule. Of course, from time to time, your dog will have the occasion to get fleas from outside, from the park, from grass, but the dog owner, if he is responsible enough, and if he cares for his pet, would give the dog anti-flea treatments.

Flea Allergy Symptoms

The main symptom which can lead you to suspect your dog has a flea allergy is scratching. By this, I don’t mean the regular scratching which all dogs do, but almost continuous scratching, with high intensity.
If you notice that at your dog, closely examine his fur, carefully look between the hairs, to see the skin. Many times, you’ll see the flea running fast and hiding behind other hairs, thus making it almost impossible to catch it. Other times, you’ll see nothing moving. However, if the dog’s fur has signs of black dirt, small spots of dark color, then you may suspect he got some naughty fleas.
If the dog has a strong flea allergy, you’ll be able to observe skin irritations, and even the fur falling down in unusually big amounts.

Getting your dog diagnosed for flea allergy

If you notice any of the above mentioned symptoms, get your dog to the vet. He’ll be able to diagnose a flea allergy on the spot, and anyway, think that your dog shouldn’t have fleas at all, under no circumstances, so use anti-flea products to prevent that.
Your vet will tell you if you need to let your dog be taken a blood sample to get him tested for flea allergy.

Categories: Pets Allergy
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Allergy symptoms can vary very much, depending on the patient’s degree of sensitization to the specific allergens, or the the level of exposure. It is well known today, and it has been proved in the scientific world of allergology that an allergic person will become more and more sensitive if he is frequently getting in contact with the substances that trigger his immune system to have an allergic reaction.

The biggest perils are not in the grown-ups world, where people are conscious and don’t make stupid jokes, but in the children’s universe, in kindergardens, schools or playgrounds. A child who has a severe allergy to peanuts, let’s say, will develop a violent allergic reaction even if he is touched with peanut butter on the skin. There’s no need for him to actually swallow the food. In such cases, the simple contact with the peanut butter could trigger a violent reaction, which choking and suffocation due to swelling of the throat and airways walls, death occuring in an interval of minutes, if epinephrine is not administered immediately.

I’ve heard about a situation when a boy who was allergic to peanuts was threatened by his schoolmates that they’d put some on his skin. This is horrible, but diseases like allergy are beyond children’s power of understanding. The shock can be so severe that, even doctors, in controlled environments, don’t have the courage to perform prick tests on patients suspected to have an extremely weak immunity system. Such persons will be tested in other way: they will be taken a blood sample which will get analyzed in the laboratory (the so-called RAST and ELIZA tests). The method doesn’t give the results on the spot like the prick tests, but it is much safer for the patients.

Parents and educators together need to make sure that the youngsters understand that such ailments cannot be a target for jokes and play, because things may end up in a tragic way for all those involved. No matter how light the allergy symptoms may be, avoidance of the contact with the allergen is key to a happy life.

Categories: Children and Allergy
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This is a question I’ve asked myself many times: is it a direct relationship between allergies and hearing? Many allergology specialists said there is no direct connection, however, severe allergies which involve inflammations of the internal ear may cause hearing loss, as consequence of another ailment which follows, namely otitis media.

Children are the biggest risk group when it comes to allergies and hearing loss, due to the fact that middle ear infections are very frequent amongst them. Statistics show that there are very few children who didn’t suffer from this kind of infection at least once in a lifetime.

As a conclusion, if you suspect your kids are allergic, you have all the resons in the world to get them tested as soon as possible, in order to avoid such complications given by allergies. Hearing loss, even temporary, is making big damage in young children, because their speech won’t develop properly if they can’t hear well.

Sometimes it is very simple to keep your child away from allergic reactions, simply by removing from alimentation the incriminated allergen. If he gets allergies each time he eats apples, wouldn’t it be so easy not to give him this food anymore than treat recurrent ear ailments which could cause him language and understanding problems that would affect him for the entire life?

Keep your children healthy and without allergies, hearing what they have to say when they feel seak.

Categories: Allergy Tips
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