There are many types of allergic reactions coming from various types of food, but not all are aware that wheat allergy also exists. From the word itself, wheat allergy is the adverse conditions which involve the immune system reacting to protein elements naturally found in wheat. Surely, you are already familiar with wheat because it is that what your mother uses to give the bread products reasons to become the bread you are eating.
It is responsible for making the bread elastic, sticky; the cake spongy; and the French bread having crispy crusts. The wheat is the substance that gives the consistency that these goodies need.
Obviously, there are many food goodies that contain wheat. And that makes it scarier, because almost all people live by eating them. And that is sad too, because if you have allergy from wheat, it means you can’t eat those goodies too. But allergy reactions from wheat do not only develop from eating foods that contain wheat. People who are working or are constantly in contact with wheat flour can also become sufferers. In fact, they have higher risk of symptoms such as occupational asthma, which can be triggered if you inhale the wheat flour.
Statistics have shown that there is lower risk in consuming food products with wheat proteins. These products usually contain albumin and gluten, derivatives of wheat. Most people who develop allergic reactions to wheat have allergies to albumin and globulin, also a derivative of wheat.
If an individual has ingested allergy from wheat, they easily experience vomiting and stomach cramps. Some people develop this experience only after a few minutes, but there are also instances that said symptoms manifest after hours. Eczema and skin rashes are symptoms also likely to occur with this specific allergy.
Wheat Allergy Can Be Life-Threatening Too
It appears that inhalant allergens from wheat are the more serious, and can even be life-threatening, than the ingested allergens. Allergic reactions caused by breathing in wheat flour or any flour that contains wheat derivatives can likely trigger heart complications while they give extreme breathing difficulty to individuals exercising. These can be life-threatening because wheat flour and some grain products with wheat derivatives have been a common staple to people’s diet such that wheat allergies are more difficult to diagnose.
How to Detect If the Person Is a Sufferer
If the individual is eating wheat-based food products occasionally, it can make it a little easier to do the diagnosis. If they become sick or develop the symptoms following such occasion, then the wheat can be a strong indicator. If wheat is a regular staple to anyone’s diet and is also constantly sick after consumption, wheat allergy might look easier to be diagnosed.
However, it is tougher to identify the cause. At this point, the best way to do it is to do elimination-challenge test, the more reliable allergy diagnosis method.
If the allergy is caused by eating wheat-based food goodies, it is best to remove it from the diet. It can be particularly difficult a regimen to do, specifically to children who do not know how to understand content labels of the food they eat, but there are other alternatives you can give them such as snack foods that are soy based.
If allergies are coming from dust of wheat flour, it is best to keep that person from that environment where there is wheat flour.