Some diseases are as annoying for doctors as they are for patients. Urticaria (popularly referred to as hives, urticaria) can be described as itchy rashes and blisters that appear spontaneously on the skin. If this skin disease continues for more than 6 weeks, it is described as chronic urticaria. When these patients appear at the door with a huge file in their hands and tests showing that they are allergic to many foods and additives, a saying of our old teachers comes to mind; I wish a tiger would enter the door instead of a chronic urticaria patient. Yes, although this statement is exaggerated, it reflects the difficulty of the disease very well. Although it is not life-threatening, it is a disease that disrupts the comfort of life more than many diseases, including some cancer diseases. Almost 1% of this disease, for which many foods and additives have been blamed in the past, occurs due to allergic reasons, and additives trigger complaints in only 1% of patients.
We doctors have tormented patients in the past by removing many foods from the patients' menu. The approach of adding different foods to the rice and meat meal described in the forest man diet and identifying the culprit food each time is no longer possible.
Although it is not an allergic disease, why is the allergy screening test described as IgE in many patients? high interest? Why do some of these patients flush when taking pain medications? In fact, there are many abnormalities accompanying urticaria in these patients, which we know or do not know, called auto-immune, which indicate that the body has developed an allergy to itself or are associated with inflammatory reactions, and the most well-known of these is autoimmune thyroid diseases. We see that many patients develop reactions to their own serum in the test performed with the application. When we told the patient that you were actually allergic to yourself, they would be helpless and we would feel relieved by blaming it on the patient to some extent. In the studies we conducted in our clinic, we published in very prestigious medical journals that this test is actually not very valuable and that reactions can occur in healthy people.
Allergy medications can only be used in 50 percent of patients. We know that he has his complaints under control. So, isn't there a possibility that this disease will disappear on its own? In 80% of patients diagnosed with chronic urticaria, the disease disappears spontaneously within 10 years (50% recovers within the first 6 months).
We are back to the beginning, it is a non-allergic disease and half of the patients benefit from the current treatment, the other half. Will it creep?
Absolutely not.
Recently, very successful new drugs have been introduced to the market and these drugs have increased the reputation of allergists. As a result, allergy tests in urticaria patients should be performed by allergists and unnecessary food restrictions should be avoided. If you have urticaria, you should still be careful about foods containing biological amines, vasoactive amines and histamine (such as strawberries, some types of fish, tomatoes, beer, wine, aged kashar cheese), ready-made foods containing sodium nitrate and sulfites such as soudjouk, sausage, salami. .
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