What to Do When You're Stung

What to Do When You're Stung

Many children do not realize they are allergic to bee stings until they get stung for the first time, while many adults have been stung before and suddenly become deathly allergic. With over 50 deaths a year in the U.S. due to anaphylaxis from insect stings, this important article describes what to do for any sort of insect bite. MRSA, a strain of staph bacteria, can also be a big concern. You can read the full article here.

Bees, wasps, and hornets: How to treat normal bites

Jul 3, 2018

Summertime means more time outdoors, where you may suffer many types of stings — mosquito bites, wasp bites, bee stings, spider bites, tick bites, or fire ant bites. While most consider insect bites a minor annoyance, they are life-threatening to the two million Americans allergic to their venom. In fact, there are at least 50 deaths each year in the U.S. because of allergic reactions from insect stings. And people who have suffered an allergic reaction have a 60 percent chance of a similar or worse reaction if stung again.

So how should you react to an insect sting?

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The Bacteria Babies Need

Could the mystery of the cause of allergies be a bacterium that now seems to have disappeared from the guts of infants? Called B. infantis, nine out of 10 American babies don’t harbor this bacterium in their gut as compared to those in less industrialized countries. The cause could be the rise in cesarean births, the overuse of antibiotics or the use of infant formula in place of breast milk. Studies suggest that by the time babies without B. infantis are older, they are more likely to have allergies and Type 1 diabetes — and be overweight.

The Bacteria Babies Need

By Kristin Lawless
June 17, 2018

We may be missing the key to one of the biggest boons to public health since the introduction of iodine into the food supply in 1924.

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have found that a strain of bacteria called B. infantis that is thought to have been the dominant bacterium in the infant gut for all of human history is disappearing from the Western world. According to their research, this was probably caused by the rise in cesarean births, the overuse of antibiotics and the use of infant formula in place of breast milk.

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Survey: Majority Don’t Use Prescribed Epinephrine in Emergency

Many with a severe allergy seem to think that an anaphylaxis reaction only happens to other people. A recent survey of 917 respondents found that 89 percent of the adults surveyed said they filled their prescriptions, but 45 percent said they didn’t have their device during their most severe allergic reaction — despite having had previous medical emergencies. What’s going on? Reasons given for not filling and carrying the prescription were cost, bulkiness, allergy not severe, no history of previous reaction and that they already had one or more. Perhaps we need a public information campaign to remind people to carry their EAI devices at all times.

Survey: Majority Don’t Use Prescribed Epinephrine in Emergency

By Denis Bedoya
June 21, 2018

A majority of people with potentially life-threatening allergies don’t use their epinephrine auto-injectors in an emergency, according to a study.

The results are based upon surveys of 917 people, including 450 adults. The findings were published Thursday in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

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Allergies More Common in Kids with Autism

As if they don’t have enough to deal with already, a recent study conducted at the University of Iowa found that children with autism are more likely to have a food, respiratory, or skin allergy. The researchers surveyed 200,000 U.S. children between the ages of 3 and 17 in the years between 2007 and 2016 and found that a child with autism might have almost three times the risk of having food allergies. It is also more difficult to diagnose an allergy in kids with autism because many cannot express how they are feeling. Researchers will continue to study possible causes and if the two conditions are somehow related.

Allergies More Common in Kids with Autism

By Serena Gordon
June 8, 2018

Children with autism are more likely to also have a food, respiratory or skin allergy, new research suggests.

What's not clear from the new study, however, is whether there's a common cause behind these conditions.

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