I know allergies are really common, but I don’t quite understand what’s so bad about pollen, peanuts, etc. that you body would rather shut down your airways entirely than let them enter. What exactly would happen if they did get in?
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Nothing. Allergens we commonly refer to are generally harmless from a biological standpoint.
The problem with allergens is that your body’s defense systems have for one reason or another has classified it as intensely hazardous and deserving of immediate and aggressive defense.
If the body has a high enough sensitivity or if you have enough of the substance in your system, your body pushes your responses into hazardous levels, the same way a fever that’s supposed to fight infection can reach temperatures harmful to the body. This is the anaphylaxis response we see: Your body pushes so hard to defend against the allergen that the response overwhelms normal functions and you need medical intervention to force it to back down before it kills you.
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