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    Recognizing and Dealing with Nut Allergies: Information that can Save Your Life
    Recognizing and Dealing with Nut Allergies: Information that can Save Your Life
    Recognizing and Dealing with Nut Allergies: Information that can Save Your Life
    Ebook85 pages48 minutes

    Recognizing and Dealing with Nut Allergies: Information that can Save Your Life

    By John Gahan, LCGI

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    About this ebook

    An allergy occurs when your body's immune system, which normally fights infection, overreacts to a substance called an allergen. Most allergens are not obviously harmful and they have no effect on people who are not allergic to them. Allergic reactions to allergens can vary from mild to life-threatening.

    Both peanuts and tree nuts (for example, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, cashews, pecans, brazils and pistachios) can act as allergens, and can cause an allergic reaction in some people. When you come into contact with something that you are allergic to (an allergen), a group of cells in your body, called mast cells, release a substance called histamine. Histamine causes the tiny blood vessels in the tissues of your body to leak fluid which causes the tissues to swell. This results in a number of different symptoms.

    Strictly speaking, peanuts are not nuts, they are legumes, in the same family as peas and beans. Peanuts grow underground whereas other nuts grow on trees. The word nut in this article can mean either tree nuts or peanuts.

    If you are allergic to nuts, when you first come into contact with nuts your immune system reacts and prepares to fight. However, you don't get any symptoms of a reaction. It is only when you come into contact with nuts for a second time that a full allergic reaction happens. Most children who are allergic to nuts have the symptoms of an allergic reaction when they appear to be exposed to nuts for the first time. However, this is probably not their first exposure, but their second. They may already have come into contact with nuts through their mother, through either of the following:

    • Whilst they were in the womb (uterus).
    • Through breast milk if they were breast-fed.

    Most people with nut allergy react after contact with small amounts (less than one nut) and some people may react to trace amounts. This means that you don't always have to eat nuts to have a reaction. A few people are so sensitive to nut allergens that a tiny amount on their lips, or even standing next to someone eating peanuts, can be enough to start a reaction.

    There are lots of different allergens but nuts cause some of the strongest and most severe reactions. Doctors don't yet know why this is.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSepharial
    Release dateAug 15, 2017
    ISBN9781386674122
    Recognizing and Dealing with Nut Allergies: Information that can Save Your Life

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      Book preview

      Recognizing and Dealing with Nut Allergies - John Gahan, LCGI

      ––––––––

      Contents

      Introduction.................................................................................................3

      Peanuts are not the same as nuts.............................................................4

      Some alarming peanut statistics..............................................................5

      Peanut allergy essentials..........................................................................6

      What is it?................................................................................................6

      How serious is it?...................................................................................6

      What is anaphylaxis and anaphylactic shock?....................................6

      Anaphylaxis and biphasic reaction......................................................8

      Other signs and symptoms.......................................................................8

      Where does your peanut allergy come from?.......................................9

      Peanut allergy versus intolerance....................................................10

      Taking in peanut proteins.......................................................................11

      Through direct contact.........................................................................11

      From cross-contact.................................................................................11

      Through inhalation.................................................................................12

      What are the most dangerous times and conditions for peanut allergy

      sufferers?...................................................................................................13

      Age plays its part..................................................................................13

      So do other medical conditions..........................................................14

      Will your reaction always be the same?...........................................14

      Things to know about epinephrine.........................................................15

      Side effects of epinephrine................................................................15

      When should I administer or use epinephrine?................................15

      Other treatments and prevention...........................................................17

      The first defense....................................................................................17

      Antihistamines........................................................................................17

      TNX-901......................................................................................................17

      Foods to avoid for peanut allergy sufferers.....................................19

      Common foods to avoid...........................................................................20

      Food labeling and our immune systems..................................................22

      The dangers of eating out.......................................................................24

      Cooking without peanuts..........................................................................25

      Tree nut allergies....................................................................................28

      What are the symptoms of tree nut allergy?...................................28

      Which tree nuts should be avoided?..................................................29

      What about coconuts and nutmeg?........................................................29

      Is product size relevant?....................................................................30

      Food sources of tree nuts....................................................................30

      Non-food sources of tree nut extracts.............................................30

      Getting advice and actions to take......................................................32

      Seek medical advice...............................................................................32

      Self-help groups and allergy associations.....................................32

      Common sense precautions.....................................................................34

      Conclusion...................................................................................................35

      2

      Introduction

      When children, all of us had foods that we really like, and many that we really believed we hated!

      Often, to the adults in our young lives, these likes and dislikes make no sense whatsoever, and more often than not, they are correct to adopt this view. For instance, as a kid I loved tomato soup but hated tomatoes and tomato juice, which I admit makes no sense whatsoever!

      As we grow older, most of us grow out of these likes and dislikes, simply because that is all they were – little more than a passing phase of liking or disliking something.

      For a large number of people, however, the problem that they have with food is more far reaching and serious than this.

      For these people, certain foodstuffs will trigger an adverse physical reaction, and while not all of these people are completely allergic to any particular foodstuff, their bodily reaction might indicate otherwise.

      In the West, the most common food allergy is to peanuts, while allergic reactions to tree nuts are far less common.

      Despite this, however, most people know little about peanut allergy, or any other form of adverse reaction to nuts.

      They would, therefore, have very little chance of recognizing such a condition in friends or family members, and this can be a particularly serious problem for the parents of young children for whom peanut allergy can be an extremely serious and distressing problem.

      This book will teach you what you need to know about such allergies, focusing primarily on peanut allergy (as this is the condition which most people are likely to be exposed to), other adverse reactions to peanut-based products, and what you can do to deal with those problems.

      In the last few pages of

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