More and more dog owners are aware that their dogs may suffer from allergies, exactly like humans do. A dog allergy can be triggered by common allergens, such as fleas, pampas grass, or specific foods.

If you notice your dog scratching a lot, or sneezing almost continuously for days, or if you see its fur falling off in large amounts, then you can suspect a dog alergy and try to further investigate the problem.

Step one: closely examine the dog’s skin, looking for signs of parasites like fleas or ticks. Any small, black spots of dirt can come from such parasites, so even if you don’t see the insects with your very eyes, you can still give your pet an anti-flea treatment.

After you removed the flea allergy suspicion, watch your dog while playing outside: do the allergy symptoms occur mainly after frequenting some specific locations? Are there any peculiar plants in those places? Pollens? Pampas grass? Weeds? If you cannot establish a relation between the allergic reactions of your dog and the places he’s been in, you’d need to step further, in suspecting a food allergy.

Food allergies in dogs, like the ones in humans are properly diagnosed by an ellimination diet. Remove one food at a time from your dog’s diet and watch the symptoms for about 1-2 weeks. Are the allergy symptoms still there, or are they alleviating slowly, to disappearance? If after one month of elimination diet your dog’s allergic manifestations are gone, then you know that was the food which acted like an allergen in this case. By simply removing it completely from the diet, your dog would be allergy-free for the rest of his life.

If the allergy symptoms are still present, then remove another food from your dog’s nutrition and repeat the observation until you manage to find out the cause of the allergy.

Don’t try to treat your dog with human alergy medication! This can be harmful and even cause your dog’s death. Humans and pets have different mechanisms of reaction to different substances. For example, a human can eat onions without any problem, while feeding a cat with onions would kill it, because onions contain a substance which is poisonous for cats. It is that easy to harm your pet!

The best advice, in case you notice allergy-like manifestations on your dog, is to take it to a vet, who can perform thorough investigations and give an appropriate allergy treatment for your dog. While airborn allergies may be difficult to control, especially in case of dogs, because you need to take your dog for a walk at least twice a day from obvious reasons, dog food allergies shouldn’t be a problem, once you get them diagnosed. Just don’t give your dog those foods anymore and you’re done.

Categories: Dog Allergy
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Regular drinking of alcohol increases the risk of developing allergic rhinitis.

Danish researchers from the Centre for Alcohol Research, National Institute of Public Health Denmark, organized a study with the aim of investigating how daily alcohol ingestion relates to the occurence of allergic rhinitis in young women. This prospective cohort study was done on 5870 women between 20 and 29 years old, who were free of either seasonal or perennial allergic rhinitis, and it took two years.

The results showed that there was no association between alcohol consumption and seasonal allergic rhinitis, but there was a connection between alcohol consumption and perennial allergic rhinitis.

Another study, which was spread over a 9 years period also showed that drinking more than two glasses of wine on a daily basis doubles the risk of developing allergy symptoms in young women.

This could be a possible explanation for the fact that allergies are on the increase over the past ten years. Women discovered alcohol, learned to enjoy it, then enjoyed too much of it, therefore harming their immune system and triggering allergic reactions and manifestations like hay fever, sore eyes, running nose, itching, sneezing or even skin rashes.

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Thinking of medicine, allergy is one of the diseases which cannot be cured, but only have their symptoms alleviated with the help of appropriate medication. Allergy requires antihistamine medication and most of the times, the patient treatment can be done at home. Such a chronic treatment needs an increased level of discipline compared to an acute treatment which would have a limited duration and not a lifetime like the chronic treatments.

How Medicine For Allergy Works

The medicine allergy sufferers would take are called antihistamines. Those drugs act upon the levels of the histamine in the body, histamine being a substance secreted by our body with the purpose of defense against intruders like foreign substances, or at least against whatever our immune system perceives as being natural enemies for the human body and its vital functions.

Besides medicine, allergy demands that the house in which the allergic lives to be kept extremely clean, free of allergens, therefore a series of measures are a must: basement mold removal, cleaning mold and mildew from all corners and rooms, mold spore removal (because removing the mold spores is crucial for getting rid of it for a long time), anti dust mite measures and more. These actions rather relate to hygiene than to medicine. Allergy is more than a disease against which we take a treatment and we live OK, allergy is a lifestyle in itself, as we need to learn how to protect ourselves from exposure to allergens we’ve tested positive to.

So, never rely solely on medicine. Allergy wants your full attention.

Categories: Allergy Tips
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Dog allergy has become more and more an issue nowadays, when people want to have dogs despite the fact that they don’t have the living conditions for that. We keep our dogs in small apartments, they eat with us in our kitchen, they sleep with us in our bedrooms, and then we wonder why dog allergies are on the increase.

When I say dog allergy, I mean both humans being allergic to dogs and dogs getting flea allergy or developing allergic reactions to substances in our homes. Allergy is a tricky disease, therefore it may be difficult to diagnose, especially in the case of dogs or other pets, as they need surveillance to see if they behave in other way than they usually do. For example, a dog scratches itself anyway to a certain degree, and nobody takes the dog to a vet each time they see the pet scratching. However, if scratching becomes a habit and it occurs repeatedly, many times a day, then we can suspect a dog allergy, most probably a flea allergy, so a visit to the veterinary would be welcome.

When to suspect a dog allergy

Continuous scratching is the first symptom of a dog allergy. Other signs you may look for are rashes or irritations of the skin, hairs falling unevenly, in big numbers, red and teary eyes, sneezing or coughing.

If you can, try to see when the symptoms occur during a day’s time: is it happening only when the dog enters a certain room? Is it happening immediately after meals? When playing in the park? What triggers this allergic response from its body?

Always look carefully at the animal’s skin and fur. If you notice small black spots which go away with ease when you grab them, then you have reasons to suspect your dog has fleas. Regardless the fact that he may or may not have a flea allergy, you still need to get him rid of those insects, because they are carriers of many diseases anyway.

The reverse look upon a dog allergy is when humans get allergic reaction in presence of dogs. The best advice is not to keep dogs anymore if you get diagnosed with dog allergy. Continuous exposure to the allergen would make your condition worsen in time, and you may end up with serious troubles if you keep on ignoring your symptoms. If you insist on having a dog while being allergic, then you need to take care of a perfect hygiene in your house: always wash the dog very well, don’t let it enter your bedroom, don’t allow him sit on your favorite chair. In general, try to minimize your contact with the dog and stay away from, playing with it too closely. Dog allergy is serious issue.

Categories: Dog Allergy
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Anaphylactic reaction or Anaphylaxis is an extremely violent allergic reaction of a person who has got into contact with a substance he’s allergic to. This reaction may occur when the body gets in touch with the allergen for the first time in life, or at a later contact, after a previous series of smaller, repeated contacts spread over time.

If it happens at the first allergen contact, and if the patient manages to get to the hospital, and he is saved by epinephrine administration, he is warned. Now he knows that he must avoid getting in contact with that killer substance for the rest of his life. As this is not always possible, persons who are known to develop anaphylactic reactions to a widespread allergen should always carry with them an epinephrine pen, and give himself a shot immediately after the unwanted contact. For example, if you have a severe allergy to bees, you shouldn’t by all means get close to hives. But as bees are pretty much everywhere in some areas, you may end up with one of them stinging you. Then, if you don’t take the epinephrine shot in a matter of seconds after the incident, you are in big trouble, because the allergic reaction will be so violent that a half an hour could be lethal.

Pampass grass, or Cortaderia, is a fast growing, perennial plant which grown tall like 15-20 inches and which has silky flower heads which can have different colors, like yellow, purple, pink or white. Seeded in early spring, the plants will be mature and blossom by August. Pampass grass is resistant to lack of water, so it may grow well even in dry climate conditions. It is an ornamental plant, but it is a real danger for allergic persons, because it produces a lot of pollen, which is one of the most common allergens.

In case you are known to be allergic and you live in an area with lots of Pampas grass, you can go to your doctor and ask to be tested against this specific allergen, in order to make sure you won’t develop an anaphylactic reaction to it in the future. If you test positive, probably your doctor would recommend you to carry an epinephrine pen ,and he’d teach uyou how to use it in case symptoms occur.

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