What is the most effective way to deal with food allergies?

Currently, the clinically recognized most effective response to food allergy is to avoid allergens accurately, keep enough emergency medicine with you, and adjust your immune status as directed by your doctor. There is no so-called "magic recipe" that can cure the disease at once.

Not long ago, I met a 6-year-old child with peanut allergy in the outpatient clinic. The elder at home heard from the neighbor that "eat more and you will gradually tolerate it." He secretly fed the child a small piece of cookie with crushed peanuts. Within 10 minutes, his lips swelled into sausages, and he was so breathless that he could not speak. He was sent to the emergency room for a long time to recover, and he almost had a serious accident.

When it comes to "eating slowly to tolerate", there are indeed different opinions in the academic community. Some studies support oral immunotherapy under strict medical monitoring. Starting from small to very micro doses and gradually increasing the intake of allergenic foods for 1 to 3 years can indeed enable many patients to achieve long-term tolerance. Even if they are accidentally exposed to a small amount of allergens later, they will not have serious reactions. However, this is definitely not a reason to try blindly at home. Without a doctor's evaluation and first aid preparation, blindly touching a small amount of allergenic foods is gambling on whether something will happen to you.

Many people say that I know to avoid it, but I don’t know when I stepped on the trap. This requires that after you have an allergic reaction for the first time, you must go to a regular hospital for an allergen test. Don’t believe the IQ tax that tests hundreds of allergens with a drop of blood and bioelectricity sold online. You need to do a serum-specific IgE test combined with a skin prick test. If necessary, cooperate with a food challenge test to accurately identify what you are allergic to. Just like a patient who was allergic to milk before, he always felt that he had been careful not to drink milk. As a result, he would get rash every time he ate the toast downstairs. Later, he discovered that the toast improver added whey protein, which is an ingredient extracted from milk. Therefore, when buying packaged food, be sure to look to the bottom of the ingredient list. Those reminders marked "may contain dairy products" and "production equipment also processes nuts/seafood" are not written casually by the manufacturer. People with allergies are best to avoid them.

Don’t think that you don’t need to prepare emergency medicine if your allergy symptoms are mild. Many people are allergic to mango only with numbness in the mouth and rash on the face at the beginning. It may suddenly escalate to laryngeal edema and anaphylactic shock after exposure. At this time, ordinary loratadine and cetirizine cannot keep up with the progress. The only first-choice emergency medicine is an epinephrine pen. Pricking it on the outside of the thigh can quickly relieve the symptoms and save time for getting to the doctor. There used to be a girl in college who was allergic to mangoes. She always felt that her symptoms were mild and she didn't need to prepare medicine. The last time her roommate handed her a mouthful of poplar nectar, she felt her throat was blocked as soon as she swallowed it. Fortunately, she went for a review a while ago and the doctor just prescribed an epinephrine pen and put it in her bag. She recovered within two minutes after injecting it herself. Otherwise, she might have suffocated when 120 arrived at the dormitory.

As for the probiotics, traditional Chinese ointments, and massage treatments that are so popular on the Internet for “reducing allergies,” there is currently not enough clinical evidence to prove that they can cure food allergies. Many people have spent tens of thousands in IQ tax, turned around, and still went to the emergency room after taking a bite of a peach. There is really no need to spend that wasted money.