i.e. how does ur body suddenly decide something is dangerous enough to warrant a reaction even tho it didnt cause it before
i might be using these tags wrong yeesh
In: 42
> It is certainly possible to develop allergies in adulthood. Adult-onset allergies can occur seemingly out of nowhere due to exposure to new allergens in the environment, family history and changes in the immune system.
If we understood this process we might be able to reverse it. But it is very hard to figure out how the immune system works and how allergies develop or goes away. Sometimes allergies tend to just appear out of nowhere. It does appear to happen more often when someone gets sick from other reasons while they are exposed to the substance they become allergic to. So it might seam like the immune system gets confused thinking that the substance is the reason you get sick. This is however a very simplified explanation, in fact too simple. We just do not have any idea on how this works and just have some simple observations.
immune dysfunction following viruses, serious illnesses, chemo, etc. u can look into the illness MCAS which is often a very good example of sudden onset allergies
An allergic reaction is caused by our immune system.
When an invading pathogen gets into our bodies, like a cold or like Covid, our adaptive immune system will pull the pathogen apart and study its chemistry. It then develops a response such as antibodies that can bond to and destroy the pathogen. But the immune system isn’t perfect, and occasionally it makes mistakes.
We gain allergies when our immune system misinterprets something benign, like pollen or the shell of a peanut, for an invading pathogen. Then each time we encounter than thing, our immune system goes into overdrive trying to destroy it, and this overdrive is the allergic reaction.
I’d like to know this because I have a large wooded property I work on and have developed allergies to several plants in recent years. I spent years and years working in and around these plants with no issue and now coming into contact with any one them is awful. I’m 59.
Depends on what you are asking. We know how allergies occur – it’s got to do with our immune system. Our immune system constantly monitors everything that goes inside our body and, when it finds something harmful, studies it and creates antibodies that target that specific pathogen. Next time our immune system detects that pathogen in our body, it just starts producing those antibodies to deal with it.
Allergies occur when our immune system marks something harmless (such as a fragment of peanut) as harmful, and creates a response for it. From now on, our immune system will start fighting fragments of peanuts as fiercely as if it was finding coronaviruses or rhinoviruses or any other pathogen – and depending on how strong your immune system reacts, and how much of the allergen you are exposing your body to, this reaction can go from a mild annoyance to a life-threatening one.
Now, if you are asking _why_ our immune system makes these kind of mistakes… that’s something we don’t know. Understand why it happens and how we can prevent or correct that will probably lead to treatments to prevent or remove allergies.
Your body doesn’t like foreign materials. It tries to kill them. Sometimes when you’re exposed to an allergen, the body misinterprets the cause as a danger. After the first exposure, your body creates memory cells that recognize the offender if it’s present again. Each time you are exposed, the symptoms get worse because your body is trying to fight it.
I remember a doctor telling me that it’s not good for children to grow up in an overly clean environment, because during those years it has something to do with the way your immune system calibrates it self
Your immune system is constantly creating and destroying “detectors” basically. The vast majority of them wind up no good and are destroyed.
Every once in awhile, it winds up making one that detects some new form of disease and keeps it.
Very occasionally, it winds up creating one thay false alarms on a benign substance and keeps that, too. From now on, your immune system will detect and react to that even though it doesn’t need to. Otherwise known as an allergy.
The exact mechanisms of this process are not well understood at this time, but we know it happens.
I ate too many pomegranates and suddenly went into anaphylactic shock 🙁 I’m so bitter, it’s my favorite fruit.
Latest Answers