What is Peanut Allergy? How do Physicians Diagnose it?

Peanut allergy forms when the immune system of the body has an anomalous, hypersensitivity response to the proteins present in the peanuts. This is one of the most common food allergies in the USA in the children.Many adults also suffer from this allergy. Every year hundreds of children and adult are treated with multiple of peanut allergy symptoms in a medical center Middlesex.

Symptoms of Peanut Allergy

Some common symptoms of peanut allergy are as follows –

• Itchy skin or rashes, which appear as small spots or large swellings.
• An itching or stingingfeeling around the mouth or throat.
• A congested nose.
• Throat seems dry and congested.
• Redness of eyes.
• Increase in blood pressure.
• In more advanced stages, breathing problem may also occur.
• Though very rare, in advanced stages cardiac arrest is also possible.

As a whole, symptoms of peanut allergy are quite visible and very annoying for the patient. In the advanced stages it can be life threatening too. In such conditions, people in Belleville and surrounding areas can consult a BELLEVILLE emergency care physician for immediate diagnosis and treatment.

Diagnosis of peanut allergy

Doctors primarily assume a children or adult is suffering from peanut allergy if one or more of the above mentioned symptoms occur with every exposure to peanuts. Diagnosis of peanut allergy varies from person to person as symptoms frequently vary from one person to another.

A physician will take note of the basic food habits of the patient. After that he will undertake skin prick test or SPT to detect the existence of peanut allergy. But, in many situations, SPT fails to provide right diagnosis, in such circumstance, peanut allergy specific IgE levels blood test is undertaken. It is found in many occasions, that this blood test also fails to detect the problem precisely. The physician then put the patient on a food elimination diet. In this process through elimination of suspected foods, physician try to understand the cause of the allergy.

If the food elimination diet test also remains indecisive regarding the source of allergy, the physician may ask for a regulated oral food test. In this testing process, the patient may be fed small quantity of peanut or any peanut-based products over a period of time in the clinic or health care unit under expert supervision.

Through any of these process, the source of allergy becomes obvious and if it is detected that peanut is causing such allergy, an expert physician starts treatment accordingly. If you run into an emergency then you can search for urgent care near me