How are allergies possible?

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How come the body can’t build up an immunity to whatever the body is allergic to? Especially if you keep getting exposed by what you are allergic to?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The allergy IS immunity. The issue is that your immune system raises a false alarm and starts hurting you from overreacting.

Imagine your immune system like a cop: do you want to be very careful who you arrest? Then you sometimes don’t catch someone and they end up murdering people. Or do you want to be more thorough, then you catch all the murderers but also sometimes an innocent person.

So it’s a tradeoff. People could have less allergies, but then there could be diseases your immune system doesn’t fight before it’s too late, wich is potentially lethal.

There is also some evidence that our lifestyle makes allergies worse. We’re not exposed enough to pathogens to keep our immune system busy with real problems, so it gets overly careful.

>Especially if you keep getting exposed by what you are allergic to?

That’s possible, but takes some time, and if the allergy is serious you might be dead before your body gets used to it.

Doctors can do a careful exposure to the allergene while monitoring the patient to desensibilize them. The effect doesn’t last forever though.

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