Food Allergy
Food Allergy usually presents as gastrointestinal symptoms and its effects over skin. Food allergy have symptoms closely related to eating food, maybe within a few seconds or minutes. The immune response of a food allergy is a strong reaction happening after eating the food, a person is allergic to.
An allergy will have an immune response, and is detectable through a skin prick test or a blood test. Sometimes it is very severe and can lead to even hospitalization.
Red Flag Signs to look for
- Itching of the mouth can be an immediate symptom with onset within seconds of coming in contact with the allergic food.
- Swelling of the face may happen on eating the food. The swelling mostly affects the lips, cheeks and eyelids. This is also known as Angioedema.
- Swelling of the tongue, lips and throat can come on after a few minutes and can be quite dramatic. This can have a rapid onset within minutes. Also known as “Oral Allergy Syndrome”
- Abdominal pain (stomach cramps) and vomiting may also occur if the food to which there is an allergy is swallowed. This is a protective response of body, which tries to throw the allergic material out of the body.
- Diarrhea is a symptom that would happen each time after eating an allergy food.
- A widespread rash can also occur with a food allergy within half an hour of eating the food.The rash is itchy with wheals/edema.