Therapy

Decisive for the therapy of food allergy is the avoidance of the corresponding food. However, in some cases this is easier said than done. Especially in our society widespread potential allergens such as gluten and lactose make it very difficult for allergy sufferers to maintain a varied diet.

This can be seen only from the fact that food allergy sufferers suffer an incident on average every third year. Due to this circumstance it can be vital for heavily concerning to carry always an allergy emergency set with itself. This usually contains an antihistamine in drop or tablet form, a cortisone preparation and an automatic adrenaline injection.

In addition, allergological training or advice from a nutritionist can be useful and helpful. An example of a particularly severe allergic reaction is peanut allergy, which can lead to anaphylactic shock. For this reason, affected allergy sufferers should be particularly careful and cautious with their allergy, as peanuts are not always obvious as food components.Peanuts can also be found in ice cream, muesli etc.

However, there must be an indication on the packaging that peanuts are contained in the food. People with other allergies should also avoid certain foods, as these can lead to cross-reactions / cross-allergies. For example, patients with a birch pollen allergy often cannot tolerate apples and nuts.

There are a few measures that pursue the goal of a causal therapy, i.e. treating the cause. These include, for example, oral tolerance induction under the supervision of a physician as well as the attempt of a subcutaneous hyposensitization as it exists with other forms of allergy. However, the actual benefit of these therapeutic approaches has not yet been fully clarified.

There are also recommendations for the prevention of food allergies. It seems to make sense here to pay attention to a varied food preparation, since frequent contact with an allergen can in principle lead to a sensitization for it. It has also been known for some time that children who were exclusively breastfed as infants suffer less frequently from allergies than children who were not breastfed.

Breastfeeding is therefore a good way of prevention. For short-term treatment of the symptoms caused by the food allergy, a doctor from any specialty should be able to provide assistance. Of course, it depends on whether the symptoms are serious or even life-threatening – accordingly, a call to the medical emergency service may be more appropriate than a visit to the family doctor. However, if a food allergy is to be treated in the long term due to strong and sometimes unavoidable symptoms, an allergologist can perform a hyposensitization procedure. This is intended to alleviate the allergy or the corresponding symptoms on contact with the respective substance in the long term.