Allergies
 As of 2005, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America estimates conservatively that one in five Americans suffer from full blown allergies problems while the Centers for Disease Control estimate that nearly 80 million Americans suffer from allergy symptoms.
If you happen to be one of the unlucky millions suffering from seasonal allergies, there are millions more suffering allergic reactions in response to food, pets and microscopic creatures you can't believe you share living quarters with. What's truly interesting about understanding allergies and their prevalence is that for some unknown reason...The incidence and reporting of allergies have started to increase since 1980.
Allergy How's and Why's ...The reason people suffer from allergies is actually pretty straightforward. Essentially there's a war going on inside of you between your body's normal defense mechanisms and substances from outside of it. Your body possesses its own weapons of mass destruction and these chemicals are released when external stimuli enter you. The invading substance could be tree pollen, grass, ragweed, cat, dust, a certain food resulting in a food allergy, or any number of other ordinary substances that the body somehow identifies as foreign. The other major class of allergies are chronic or persistent allergies which essentially means there is no seasonality to the attack. Common examples of chronic (perennial) allergies are mold allergies, dust mite allergies and pet allergies because of exposure throughout the year. Allergic and Don't Know It?It's absolutely true that people can walk around with what they think are cold symptoms and sinusitis for five years and just assume it's a chronic cold. They then go, get tested and, lo and behold, they have happen to have dust mite allergies. How can you tell if you're allergic?Having certain symptoms during specific seasons of the year, chances are you have allergies and don't know it.
Drew Voight 
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