Food allergy is a medical condition that is caused by an immune system reaction to specific foods. Symptoms of food allergy include hay fever-like symptoms, itchy skin, stomach pain and diarrhea. For people who are allergic to certain foods, these symptoms can be severe and life-threatening."
Food allergy is the immune system’s abnormal response to a particular food. This response can be immediate or delayed, resulting in some symptoms and others remaining mild or even undetectable. The most common food allergies are caused by the immune system overreacting to an allergen found in an otherwise healthy food. For example, if you eat a peanut butter sandwich every day for lunch but one day experience hives within a few hours of eating it, this could be caused by your body’s reaction to the peanut butter rather than the bread itself
Food allergies are one of the most common causes of infant death in developed countries, from gastrointestinal problems and indirect effects of inflammation in the short term and anemia or lack of iron due to bleeding into the gut (vascular leak) in long term.
Try these self-care approaches:
1.If you have an allergy to one thing, try to avoid it as much as possible. When you can't avoid it all day long (for example, a peanut allergy) then you may need to avoid certain products for a week or so, just to get your body used to it and stop reacting. If the item is relatively benign on its own, like coffee creamers or even alcohol, then there is no reason not to use it.
2. Take note of what your body does when exposed to certain foods
3. Go through the list of foods that cause a reaction every few weeks
4. Keep track of how well you react