The Most Common
Food Allergies
and How to Treat Them
Common food allergies occur most
frequently with children, but it is possible for
adults to develop them as well. Symptoms of food
allergies might include tingling around the
mouth, swelling of the lips or a skin rash. It
might also include the more common allergy
symptoms like a runny nose and congestion.
Stomach upset is typical with many of the common
food allergies, and might include symptoms like
cramps or diarrhea. In some cases, dizziness may
also be a symptom. More severe allergy symptoms,
also known as anaphylaxis, may include swelling
of the mouth and airways, difficulty breathing,
vomiting or fainting. These symptoms require
immediate medical attention, since anaphylaxis
can become life threatening very quickly.
It is always a good idea to see
your doctor if you think that you are suffering
from a common food allergy. Even if your first
reaction was mild in nature, it is possible that
future exposures to the allergen can cause a
more severe reaction to develop. Your doctor can
use a number of different methods to try to
determine whether you do indeed have a common
food allergy and what exactly you are allergic
to. This can be done through skin tests, blood
tests, an overview of the things that you have
eaten, and an elimination plan of taking certain
foods out of your diet. Sometimes the exact
culprit of a common food allergy can be
identified, but other times it can be more
difficult to pinpoint. One piece of information
that makes precise diagnosis a little bit easier
is a list of the most common food allergies.
This is often a good place to start in the
testing process.
The Top Eight
Eight
foods have now been identified as the most
common food allergies. These include milk and
eggs, peanuts and tree nuts, fish and shellfish,
and wheat and soy. This list of the top eight
most common food allergies can explain around
90% of all of the food allergies that are
diagnosed today. The good news is that the FDA
(Food and Drug Administration) has now required
food manufacturers to list these eight allergens
as ingredients in all food products so that
people with these common food allergies can more
effectively avoid their triggers in the food
they eat. This is important because avoidance of
allergens is generally the best treatment option
for the common food allergies. If you know that
you have an allergy to one of these foods, it is
necessary to get in the habit of reading the
labels on the foods that you eat, so that you
can effectively avoid ingredients that you know
you will have a reaction to.
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