Can I sleep with food allergies?

There is really no one-size-fits-all approach to this matter. Sleeping can be done if you have mild symptoms, and it may even help your body recover. However, if there are signs of severe allergies, you will have to go to the emergency room as soon as possible, let alone sleep. Even staying alone is risky.

A while ago, a mother came to me and asked me, saying that her 3-year-old baby ate half a piece of mango, and the corners of his mouth turned red, and there were seven or eight small wheals on his arms. After feeding the child's loratadine, the baby rubbed his eyes until he couldn't open them. Can he put him to sleep? I asked her to feed the baby some warm water and observed her for ten minutes. The baby could speak clearly, did not complain of pain when swallowing, and was breathing steadily, so I let her rest assured and put her to sleep. When she woke up the next day, the rash was basically gone, and the baby was bouncing around.

The reason why many people struggle with this issue is actually because they are afraid that their allergies will worsen after falling asleep and they will not notice it. This worry is indeed not unnecessary. Severe allergic reactions progress much faster than everyone thinks. It may develop to laryngeal edema and difficulty breathing in 10 minutes. When we communicated with colleagues in the emergency department before, we heard of a case: a young man in his 20s was allergic to peanuts. I carefully took a bite of the cake mixed with crushed peanuts. At first I just felt a little tight in my chest. I thought it was because I was tired from working during the day. I fell asleep when I got home. After half an hour, my roommate went to ask him to get something, only to find that his face was purple from suffocation. He was sent to the hospital for a long time to save his life. If he had been a little vigilant at that time and not slept directly, but went to the hospital for a checkup first, he would never have suffered such a serious crime.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to sleep as long as you are exposed to allergens. The core is to do a simple self-assessment first. You can figure out the situation by yourself without any professional equipment: take a few mouthfuls of saliva and see if there is any tightness or cotton-like feeling in your throat. Feel the physical sensation, and then smooth the chest. Do you feel stuffy or labored to breathe? If you are also dizzy, palpitated, or have cold hands and feet, don't think about anything. Call 120 and go to the emergency room immediately. In this case, let alone sleeping, it is easy to be in danger if there is no one around you.

But if you don’t feel any discomfort at all, just a rash or itchiness on the skin, or a slight diarrhea or nausea, then feeling sleepy after taking antihistamines is a normal reaction to the drug. Sleeping can actually reduce the body’s metabolic burden and help the immune system calm down faster, which is much better than enduring it. If you are really worried, just say hello to your family or roommates before going to bed and ask them to pay attention to whether your breathing is stable at night and whether you are pale or out of breath.

I often tell the allergy patients who come for consultation that allergies are like a smoke alarm going off at home. If it is only triggered by heavy cooking fumes, open the window to ventilate and do whatever you want. If you are sleepy, it will be fine.； If you can already smell the burnt smell and see smoke, you must first investigate the hidden dangers before considering anything else. If you dare to close your eyes and sleep at this time, you will not be able to wake up when the fire burns around you. After all, everyone's allergy threshold is very different. Some people only have red mouth corners after eating mango for three consecutive years, but suddenly develop laryngeal edema in the fourth year. When you are really unsure about the situation, it is safer to go to the emergency room for an extra two hours for observation than to bet that you will be fine after sleeping.