Allergies in children

What allergies affect children the most ?

Currently, the frequency of allergy in children has been greatly increased due to multiple factors, many of them related to the climate change that we are experiencing.

Since always allergy to dust and moisture have been the most frequent in childhood , but for a while now we have also seen a significant increase in allergies to cow protein, olive, dog and cat hair and especially food allergies to nuts , which are usually present in a large number of infant foods, not in whole form but if mixed with many of the food components that we give to children.

How can childhood allergy be detected?

Pediatricians are medical professionals who value the clinic very much compared to the complementary tests we can perform. For this reason, we often diagnose an allergic problem in children based on their symptoms. This is because many times the immune system of the patient is immature and this makes the tests obtained in the laboratory are inconclusive, it can happen that the same allergic test is positive but made at another time gives us a negative result .

For this reason we will first observe the symptomatology that usually presents the child before an allergy. This can be of various types such as a digestive manifestation with vomiting , diarrhea or constipation , a dermatological manifestation in the form of dermatitis or urticaria or a respiratory manifestation in the form of respiratory distress, coughing and bronchospasm .

How are allergies treated?

Allergies have a specific symptomatic treatment and a long-term preventive treatment. The treatment of the crisis will depend on the clinical manifestation. If for example the child has atopic dermatitis , the treatment will be aimed at treating the problem locally with corticosteroid creams in many cases. On the other hand, respiratory manifestation crises will require the use of bronchodilators such as salbutamol and inhaled anti - inflammatories such as budesonide .

In any case, the best treatment is good prevention and, if we know the cause of the allergy, we should avoid it so that the clinical picture does not develop.

What is the evolution of allergy with age?

Allergies in children can evolve in many ways. There are primary allergies, for example to the protein of cow's milk, which can remain throughout life. Respiratory allergies due to specific inhaled allergens usually have a good prognosis in children, as they usually disappear or improve over time. In addition, currently with the use of preventive medication and especially with the administration of specific allergy shots , the evolution in time is usually good. In any case, there are always exceptions in which, despite all the measures, the children do not improve and may even get worse in adulthood.. In this case it is important to note that the later the allergy starts, the more likely it is that it will persist into adulthood.