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Can Allergy Testing Help with Eczema

Posted on by Donna Mastriani

The connection between allergies and eczema

You may be surprised to hear that there’s a strong connection between eczema and allergies. While two may seem like completely different issues, there’s solid evidence that they’re connected. This has prompted experts to ponder whether allergy testing would help those suffering from eczema.

There’s currently a lot of conversation about the connection between eczema and food allergies. The topic in question is; “does having eczema make developing food allergies more common than those without eczema? Can food allergies cause eczema? Does having one worsen the other?

Evidence suggests that those who suffer from the skin condition are more likely to develop food allergies than those without. Conversely, people who have a food allergy are also more likely to have eczema.

How Allergy Testing can help

The idea is that having an allergy test could help eczema sufferers alleviate their symptoms. Allergy testing looks for the IgE antibody – If you have an allergic reaction, the IgE antibody will be present. This testing can help you to understand if the eczema is a result of a food allergy. 

Identifying and avoiding a food allergy has been proven to help clear up cases of eczema. Most people expect an allergic reaction to cause symptoms such as anaphylaxis and swelling rather than skin conditions, but there’s a wide range of symptoms which can arise from an allergic reaction. Eczema is one of these symptoms. 

If you’re experiencing a bout of eczema, you should first figure out whether something topical could be causing it. Is it a new hygiene product or laundry detergent? Maybe something in the local environment? It doesn’t make sense to get an allergy test until you’ve ruled out all the other possibilities.

A Cure for Eczema?

Research indicates that food allergy testing could lead to alleviating eczema and, when used early in the diagnostic process, it could save lots of time and discomfort. Not to mention it can pinpoint an unknown food allergy that could cause much more serious issues than a skin condition.

Only time will tell if allergy testing can help cure eczema. but it’s exciting to imagine that a cure exists. Especially to those who are regularly dealing with severe cases and aren’t seeing impactful results from traditional treatment. 

While we try to connect the dots between eczema and food allergies — and which comes first — for now, it’s clear that food allergy testing could be the key to the dealing with eczema.

Skin Allergies Explained

Posted on by Donna Mastriani

Irritation of the skin can be caused in many ways. A problem like this can happen as result of disorders of the immune system, infection or medication. When the immune system has been triggered by a particular allergen, this classifies the problem as a skin allergy.

There are several different types of skin allergy. Here are just a few examples:

Contact Dermatitis

When skin comes into contact with an allergen and there is a subsequent reaction, it is referred to as ‘contact’ dermatitis. For example, if your body is allergic to white gold and you unknowingly wear jewellery that contains the metal, it will likely result in a swollen, itchy, red or even scaly skin around the area it was worn.

Contact dermatitis can also be caused by plants like poison ivy, wood nettle or poison oak and will result in a similar reaction. There doesn’t have to be much of the offending oil from the plants transferred onto your skin to cause a problem either, as you can get a reaction from something as minor as stroking your dog that has rubbed against some.

Hives

Also known by the medical term ‘Urticaria’, hives are a type of inflammation that happens when a person’s immune system detects a foreign object and thus produces histamine. This is usually a method the body uses to protect itself, but it causes its own problems such as swelling, especially when it over-produces the chemical.

Hives occur when this swelling goes deep into the skin’s layers, which can be persistent (or chronic) or acute. Acute urticaria typically happens as a result of a food trigger, whereas the cause of chronic urticaria is much more difficult to diagnose.

Angioedema

Usually affecting the soft tissue areas of the body, angioedema often comes along with hives and with the chronic variety is notoriously difficult to find a cause for. Acute angioedema normally lasts less than a day and is associated with allergic reactions to foods or medications.

Atopic Dermatitis or Eczema

By far the most prevalent skin condition is eczema, particularly with children. A staggering 20% of all children suffer with the condition, whereas in adults, it is as low as 2%. Eczema can also compound other allergies brought on by sensitivity to certain foods, but when severe atopic dermatitis occurs, a large number of those who have the condition, have it for more fundamental, genetic reasons. A ‘faulty’ gene called ‘filaggrin’ causes a weakness in the skin, making it more permeable and prone to infection.

Hereditary Angiodema or HAE

HAE is quite uncommon and a rather more serious acquired condition that affects many parts of the body, including swelling of the face, airways, feet, hands and lower gut. This type of skin condition requires the expert eye of a specialist, as it doesn’t improve with the application of traditional adrenaline or antihistamine treatments.

If you or someone you love has a skin allergy that you just can’t seem to find a cause for, then we would absolutely recommend using one of our scientifically proven allergy blood screen tests that compares a small sample of your blood against an array of possible allergens and really gets to the nub of the problem.

For as little as £75, we can identify the cause of your skin problem, so you can take control and remove the source of the condition. At Lifelabtesting.com, we are accredited by the British Association for Applied Nutrition & Nutrition Therapy (BANT) and members of the scientific community.

Get some blessed relief by getting your Allergy test from LifeLab Testing now.