If you recently visited an allergy clinic and were told that you are suffering from an allergy, you must wonder what causes allergies to develop, right?

Allergies come about when the body reacts to allergens. When the body comes into contact with the allergens, it produces special antibodies capable of recognizing the same allergic substances when the body comes into contact with it in the future.

In the event you come into contact with the allergen again, the body responds to the substance by causing a series of reactions that often involve blood vessel dilation, tissue destruction, and production of several inflammatory substances, including histamine.

Histamine is responsible for most classic allergy symptoms such as sneezing, sinus congestion, shortness of breath, watery eyes, headaches, nasal congestion, and hives.

Which are the common allergy triggers?

Although several allergens can bring about allergies, there are some that are more common than others. The common ones include:

Pollen

Pollen is the major cause of seasonal allergies. Different pollen from different plants cause allergies at different times of the year. For example, ragweed is responsible for allergic rhinitis that begins in late August and continues until the first frost.

Pollen from grasses such as red top, Bermuda, bluegrass, timothy, orchard, and others cause springtime allergies while pollen from trees such as birch, beech, oak, ash, sycamore, alder, and others bring about early springtime hay fever.

Mold spores

You can come across mold any time of the year, whether you spend most of the time indoors or outdoors. Common causes of outdoor mold are dead leaves and farm areas, while old books, bathrooms, and other damp areas are the leading causes of indoor mold.

Household allergens

Did you know your home has plenty of allergies that can worsen your allergies? The most common allergens are pet dander, dust, foods, and chemicals. These allergens often worsen the situation in winter when you keep the house closed most of the time. The situation is even worse if your house has poor ventilation.

How do you manage allergies?

Unless in severe cases, allergies are rarely life-threatening, but they can impact your life by decreasing your productivity, reducing your concentration in school, and due to the symptoms, you have a negative outlook on life. Due to this, you should move with haste and manage the condition before it brings your life to a halt.

There are plenty of ways you can control the condition, including:

Nasal sprays: These are medications that reduce the swelling in your nose, and from their name, you spray them into your nose. While they are great, they can be stuffy, runny, and itchy to the nose, so use them with caution.

Inhalers: You inhale these into your lungs to open the airways. There are primarily two types of inhalers that you can take: daily use and rescue inhalers. From their name, you take the daily inhalers during the allergy season to reduce the symptoms and the rescue inhalers when you are having an attack.

Prescription antihistamines: Although most of the antihistamines are now over the counter, you can still visit your allergy doctor Manassas VA, and he prescribes the antihistamines he deems right for your condition.

Allergy injections: You can still visit a clinic and have a series of injections meant to desensitize your immune system to the allergens that trigger the symptoms.

Immunotherapy: Here, you try to retrain the immune system to recognize the allergen and safe, and as a result, it doesn’t react to them. Even if the symptoms don’t go away completely, immunotherapy significantly reduces its frequency and severity.