Food allergy topical application

First, non-allergenic medical dressings (such as physiological saline, compliant medical cold compresses) are used to relieve red and itchy skin caused by allergies.； Second, desensitization treatment using purified low-concentration allergen patches is performed by doctors in regular medical institutions. The risk of using folk remedies yourself is extremely high and is not recommended at all. **

Last time I worked the night shift in the dermatology emergency department, a girl came in in the middle of the night. Half of her face was so swollen that she couldn't even hang the mask, and there was only a slit in her eye. She couldn't speak clearly. It took me a long time to figure out that she had a small red rash on the corner of her mouth after eating mangoes the day before. She read on Xiaohongshu and saw someone saying that "mango pits boiled in water and applied in water can cure mango allergy." She boiled water at home and soaked it with cotton pads and applied it for half an hour. When she applied it, she felt itchy. She thought it was "detoxification", so she slept through it and woke up like this. Finally, it was found that the allergen was indeed mango allergy. I took glucocorticoids for three days and applied ointments for another week before it disappeared. In the end, there was still a brown discoloration on the corners of her mouth for two months. The girl cried and said that she would never dare to try home remedies again.

In fact, the saying that "food allergies should be applied externally to the corresponding food" is not groundless. The older generation has a saying of "fighting poison with poison". Traditional Chinese medicine does have a treatment method of "application desensitization", but people use medicinal materials that have been processed and attenuated. There are strict requirements on dosage, application time, and suitable groups. They are not the same thing as "fresh mango puree for face" and "egg white for eczema" that we now upload online. I have a naturopathic friend who talked to me before. They will give atopic dermatitis patients who are not allergic to the food itself to use food-derived preparations such as rice bran oil that has been fermented for 3 years and calendula extract that has been cold-extracted to desensitize for external application. Indeed, many people have reported dry skin. The dryness and itchiness has been relieved a lot, but the prerequisites are extremely stuck: first, you are absolutely not allergic to this raw material, and second, you must do a 24-hour patch test on the intact skin behind the ears before use. If there is no reaction, use it again. It is absolutely impossible for you to use food you are allergic to.

The consensus of modern evidence-based medicine in this regard is actually very clear: food allergy is essentially a hypersensitivity reaction mediated by immunoglobulin IgE. When you already have allergic symptoms, the skin barrier itself is damaged. At this time, the allergen is directly applied to the skin lesion. It is equivalent to giving the immune system a "target". What is originally just a small local rash is likely to induce a more serious inflammatory reaction, ranging from increased redness and swelling to blisters and exudate. In severe cases, it may trigger urticaria and laryngeal edema all over the body. This is not an alarmist.

Of course, it is not completely impossible to use allergens for external application. There are indeed small-sample clinical studies showing that patients with mild peanut and milk allergies use purified, extremely low-concentration allergen extracts for skin application, gradually increasing the concentration, and persisting for six months to a year. Nearly 60% of patients can achieve "less than 10% of the patients." "It has the effect of not causing an attack after being exposed to a large amount of allergens," but this belongs to the category of specific immunotherapy. The whole process must be operated by doctors in the hospital, and serum IgE levels are regularly monitored. The concentration of allergens used at home is nanogram-level. If you just squeeze a sip of milk or pick out some peanut butter at home, the concentration will be thousands of times higher than that of other people. It is just looking for trouble.

In the past two years, I have encountered at least 20 people in the outpatient clinic who aggravated their allergies by applying food externally. Some people used egg white to apply eczema and ended up with scars. Some people were allergic to pineapple and used pineapple skin to apply on their faces, and their whole faces were rotten. There were also some parents who applied wheat bran water to their children with wheat allergies, which eventually induced asthma and sent them to the ICU. It was really shocking to see. Many people think that "it doesn't matter if it is applied externally but not eaten." In fact, when there is a break in the skin, the absorption efficiency of allergens is no less than if it is eaten, and the severity of allergic reactions is not absolutely proportional to the amount of exposure. Some people can explode even if they get a little bit of it.

If you really have a food allergy and the rash is unbearably itchy, and you want to apply something to relieve it, the simplest and safest way is to soak sterile gauze in normal temperature saline and apply it for 10 to 15 minutes, which can quickly relieve the redness and itching. If it still doesn't work, go to the hospital to prescribe ointment. Those food remedies that sound amazing, don't touch them if you can. If you really want to try any food-derived skin care products, do a behind-the-ear sensitivity test first. It never hurts to be more cautious. After all, your face is your own, and no one can do it for you if you suffer.