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"What's allergic' mean?"

Daniel had just told his kindergarten teacher he was allergic to peanut butter, and most of his classmates didn't have any idea what he meant.

"Well," the teacher tried to explain, "it means your body doesn't like something that was put in it."

"Oh," said Samantha, "well then I'm allergic to broccoli and lima beans and cabbage and."

The explanation was a primitive one for my kindergarten class, and easily misunderstood. However, the central point of the teacher's answer was correct. An allergic reaction takes place when histamines attach to the allergen, or the thing causing the reaction. Histamines act as flags which alert the body to respond in various ways. Those flags, or the allergens themselves, may tickle your nose and induce sneezing. Histamines can also attract red blood cells to fight the allergen which your body "doesn't like" or which makes your body believe it is being attacked, resulting in redness.

An anti-histamine, the most common allergy remedy, is like a blanket. They're specially shaped to attach to histamines, and to cover up the flag so it doesn't attract red blood cells, or raise awareness of the allergen in any other part of the body.

An allergic reaction is just your body's way of fighting a foreign substance it doesn't think should be in your body. Anti-histamines or other allergy medications are appropriate when the foreign substance is actually harmless, like dust or pet dander, but reactions to things like mosquito bites can be important, since some mosquitoes carry diseases like the West Nile Virus or Malaria.

While allergies may irritate you, they can also be helpful. The next time you're bothered by a runny nose or watery eyes, just remember that it's a sign your body is working well and communicating properly to you when it doesn't like something.

Learn more about this author, Samantha Enns.
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