The impact of food allergies on quality of life

Introduction

The reason why I want to research about allergies is I have in trouble with allergies. I prefer to take an online classes. I always cough and my nose runs. My nose catches dust in the air when I breathe. My classmates may hear a lot of sneezing and coughing. I feel uncomfortable being in the classes. When I cough and sneeze, sometimes my other classmates and my professors give me a sign to leave. People have unfavorable views on the person, coughing. Even the coughing from allergy, people don’t like to be with that person. I was in the Economic class. On that day, when pollen levels were high, I had a really bad case of hay fever.

I kept coughing and sneezing and made some noise to my classmates. I was trying to hold coughing, but it didn’t work. My professor just asked me to leave the class. It was a review day for mid-term and I couldn’t be in the class, because of my allergies. The noise of allergies disturbed other classmates, but the reason my professor asked me to leave was because my professor and my classmates were worried about the infection of allergies, because the symptoms of allergies, coughing, seems the same as a cold. When I have a really bad allergies, I am absent in the classes, because I don’t want to disturb the classes. I asked my professors to excuse, but they didn’t accept my excuse. In this research paper, I want to let people know that allergies are not contagious to other people, and even if it may disturb my other classmates, it is just something beyond my control.
The body has a natural or acquired immune mechanism of dealing with foreign materials which enter it or come into contact with it. This hypersensitive immune mechanism that often detects a harmless substance as a pathogen and develops a mechanism to fight it is called an allergy.

Different people are allergic to different substances. These may include pollen, dust, food materials such as bee honey. The body’s immune system which is supposed to guard our bodies against pathogens (organisms or materials which cause ill health) reacts in a manner trying to destroy the material or substance that is harmless. The substances that cause hypersensitive allergic reactions are called allergens. Antibodies in the body are responsible for fighting any foreign material that the body detects as pathogenic. When the body reacts in a hypersensitive manner towards the harmless substance such as dust or honey, these antibodies are produced to fight it. Consequently, this leads to the production of histamine. There are different types of antibodies that defend the body against various forms and types of foreign attack. However, the ones that are responsible for allergic responses are the IgE.
Therefore, as in my case, I am allergic to dust. Whenever I come across dust, my body reacts hyper sensitively and the result is coughing and running nose. The biology behind it is simple. When dust gets into my body, the antibodies which are always ready to defend my body against foreign materials will detect them as pathogens which are ready to attack my body and cause ill health (Medical News Today).

Therefore, the IgE specifically responsible in such cases will move ahead to engage the dust particles. In the process, histamine is produced and it is the one that causes accumulation of mucus in the gaseous pathways that is passed out as mucus and coughing to remove the sputum and the mucus. However, this is a personal experience and so another individual may not have a similar experience. Allergens (substances that cause allergies) are different and specific to specific people (The Mayo Clinic). The allergic symptoms are also ranging as some people may just have a cough, others may have severe attacks such as in asthma cases.
In this research paper, I shall explore the topic from various dimensions which include the medical perspective, social and educational perspective. These areas often overlap since they affect each other. The research shall involve interviewing a number of people who have allergic responses to understand how they cope with it and how they are socially affected. The interviews conducted will be in form of a questionnaire with closed and open ended questions. The individuals who will voluntarily accept to respond to the questions will first either select the section of those who have experienced allergic reactions and those who have not. Each category will have an array of questions that follow which will be used to develop our hypothesis in the research. Considering my case, being allergic to dust and the stigma that arise since students treat me differently has affected my learning process. I can only attend online classes as I cannot fit in the normal class.
This conclusive decision was reached after realizing that I used to inconvenience other students with my persistent coughs when I attended the classes. Since not all students could understand, it was becoming increasingly hard for me to concentrate with my negatively impacted self-esteem. According to Ann (2013), low self-esteem has affected my grades negatively (141-145). This being the case, it will be prudent to develop a working strategy to ensure that all students who are often experience allergic attacks.

There are students whose parents experience allergic attacks such as in asthma cases. Asthma patients use a lot of money and other resources on medication not forgetting that they will not be in a position to work well and raise the money that is required to cater for their medical needs. Looking at such cases, it would be important for such students to be considered as they may find it hard to raise the fee required for to meet their academic financial obligations.

Cited Work

1. Ann, P. The Impact of Food Allergies on Quality of Life. Immunology and Allergy, 42(7), 141-145. Print.
   Medical News Today. What are Allergies? What is an Allergy? (September 18, 2013), Web. Retrieved From. http://www.medicalnewstoday. com/articles/264419. php.
2. Mayo Clinic. Allergies. Web. Retrieved From.
   http://www. mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/allergies/basics/definition/con-20034030