Types of Allergies

Allergies are some of the biggest nuisances that you can experience in your day-to-day life. They can also negatively impact your performance in sports. This is something you should try to prevent and limit.

An “allergy” is an immune response from the body, to a substance that is normally harmless to the host. That’s why certain signs and symptoms characteristic of many types of allergies spring up when your body is exposed to them. This is regardless of whether you eat them, inhale them, or your skin comes into contact with them.

Different types of allergies:

Asthma

Asthma manifests itself in the respiratory system. It principally involves chronic inflammation of the respiratory tract. It shows up in different forms. Some examples are: difficulty breathing, thoracic pressure, or bouts of coughing.

The principal symptoms of this condition are: breathing with a whistle, a feeling of pressure in the chest, and coughing. This coughing tends to be more frequent at night or in the early morning.

These symptoms vary with time. There are periods where the patient feels well and has no symptoms. Nevertheless, there are periods of asthma crisis where the symptoms become much worse.

In this case, the respiratory tract may close up completely. That impedes the lungs from undertaking their function of exchanging gases. It paves the way for vital organs to be unable to function. In the worst cases, asthma attacks may even lead to death.

Rhinitis

Rhinitis is a type of allergy where there is inflammation in the mucuosal lining of the nose. Its principal symptoms are: rhinorrhea, sneezing, nasal itching, congestion, and postnasal drip.

If you go to the doctor for this condition, he’ll examine the inside of your nostrils. The doctor will be able to see if the mucous on the turbinates is inflamed or if it has become red or violet-colored, which is a sign of rhinitis. Aside from that, this type of inflammation causes a reddening of the throat.

Other common symptoms tend to be congested eyes. These can sting and produce frequent tears. The patient with this condition has difficulty breathing, which favors sinusitis. It also leads to headache, a feeling of malaise, and even general irritability.

Conjunctivitis

Conjunctivitis is an infection that is characterized by inflammation in the conjunctive layer in the eye. This layer is a mucuosal membrane that covers the inside of the eyelids. It reaches all the way to the back of the eyeball.

The most common symptoms of allergies in the conjunctiva are: reddening, photophobia, and eyes that produce an excessive amount of tears. It could also have other symptoms depending on the root cause of the condition. Some of these are: the excess production of morning eye mucous in the affected eye, or an increase in the size of your lymph nodes. These can last from one to three weeks.

Dermatitis

This is a condition where there is an inflammation of the skin with dermoepidermal issues. The actual patterns of the inflammation are variable. That’s why experts have given different manifestations of this issue different names, such as: eczema, psoriasis, or pitiriasis, among others.

These types of allergies display themselves differently on the body. They might be acute, sub-acute, or chronic. Also, the level of severity can vary from generalized (throughout the body), to a low level of severity where only small areas of the skin are affected.

Hives

Hives are a very common allergic reaction.

This is a condition where many oedematous lesions come up on the skin. They have limited outlines and an erythematous halo. In most cases, itching accompanies this illness.

The lesions that this type of allergy produces are called “bumps.” They tend to last between two and six hours from the time of onset. One peculiar characteristic of these bumps is that they can disappear spontaneously and reappear in the same location on the body, or in another location. This could happen a few hours or days after they disappear.

Other types of allergies

The most important and common types of allergies are those that we have previously mentioned. Although, aside from these, we can find other, different types of allergies. Here is a short list of some others:

• Anaphylaxis
• Food allergies
• Allergies to medication
• Allergies to mosquito bites