In our last article, we talked about cause of allergy and type of allergy which divided according to its cause. In this article, we will close the topic of allergy by talking about how to protect yourself from allergies and treatment guidelines. Allergy protection and treatment can also be divided according to the cause of such allergy.
The normal principle for allergy protection, treatment and how to treat patients with allergies are:
- Environmental control and allergen control – survey on Thai patients with allergies found that most patients allergy to the “Dust Mites”. Therefore, it is suggested that we should have clear and open bedroom without any rugs, dolls and curtains. We should also wash our bed sheets, pillow cases and blankets in hot water at 60 ° C for 30 minutes at least once a week. Also, cover our bed, pillow and side pillow with synthetic fabrics, which can help prevent dust mites from our bed.
- Cockroaches – we can prevent or decrease the chances of having cockroaches in our house by eliminating the food sources of cockroaches by throwing out garbage and food waste in bags or bins with tight lid.
- Pets – we should avoid having pets with fur such as dog, cat, bird, rabbit, etc.
- Pollen – we should frequently cut the glasses and weeds around the house area to decrease the amount of pollen. We should not put any trees, fresh or dried flowers within our house. During pollen season, we should do outdoor activities in the morning because there will be more pollen in the air in the evening.
In addition to the above, we should also avoid having contact with any irritants that may cause the recurrent of allergy such as cigarette smoke, exhaust fumes, pungent smell, fragrance, incense smoke and dust from various sources. It is very important that we exercise frequently and have enough sleep as the result says that the symptoms usually get worse when patients are in stress and lack of sleep. When asthma symptoms aggravated from exercise, patients should use the bronchodilator for about 15-30 minutes before the exercise as it can helps prevent the occurrence of asthma during the exercise.
If possible, we would like to recommend every patients with the symptom of allergies to get a skin test from the lavatory in order to understand more clearly of what they are allergic to so the patient can avoid such allergen.
- Medication – we can divided the treatment for allergy into 3 different stages for better and easier understanding as follows Medical Reliefs such as Anti-Inflammatory or Antihistamine and bronchodilator, Anti-Inflammatory Agents such as steroid medicines, or medicine to be inhaled through mouth or nasal cavity, and Immunotherapy Vaccine is the treatment where we inject allergen into the body starting from very small amounts and increase the injection amounts until the body becomes accustomed to such allergen. The treatment of immunotherapy vaccine is normally used for those whose symptoms does not gets better from medication or have side effect from the medicine. Where it is required to know before the vaccine injection of what we are allergic to so the doctor can use such allergen as the vaccine. The immunotherapy vaccine treatment must be provided be medical specialists and patients are required to be treated continuously as doctors recommend for at least 3-5 years.
And that is all for our article about Allergy. We hope that the information is useful for those readers who have allergies especially now that it is the turn of the season. Please don’t forget to take care of your health. We will see you again in our next article with new interesting topic. Don’t forget to follow!!
