Allergy is now quite common. It manifests itself in the form of a painful reaction to various foods, supplements and alcohol. Is there an allergy to wine, or is it a myth? According to doctors, it is far from uncommon. But what does it have to do with it?
Myth or truth?
Often, people believe that an allergy to wine is nothing more than a rejection of ethyl alcohol by the body. In reality, this is not the case. As such, there is no allergy to ethanol, which means that such a reaction is, in fact, the body's response to various impurities in the drink. For example, herb extracts, nut trace, yeast or fungal fermentation products.
In addition, an allergy to grape wine can dismantle that you are susceptible to the grapes themselves or react to the pesticides that the berries were treated with before they were processed.
Often, traditional signs of allergy also appear due to the presence of mold in wine. At the same time, the amount of the latter can be the slightest, not determinable either by taste or smell.
Alcohol intolerance
Allergies are often confused with ordinary alcohol intolerance. Headache in the morning, increased blood pressure, tachycardia, trembling and redness of the skin - may not be symptoms of an allergy to wine, but of general alcohol intoxication, which, unlike allergies, is irregular.
Fight intolerance or the results of intoxication in the same way as you usually fight an alcohol hangover: drink more water, take absorbent substances, eat some hot and spicy food.
Diseases and weak immunity
One of the main causes of allergies is a weakened immune system. In the frantic pace of life in a large metropolis, people rarely pay attention to a broken regimen, bad habits and malnutrition, but it is these everyday little things that lead to impaired immunity, which then demonstrates hypersensitivity to certain substances.
Allergy can also be a consequence of infectious rhinitis - a disease caused just by a weakened immune system. When coming into contact with an irritant (wine in this case), the mucosa swells and the only way to avoid this is to exclude the wine drink from consumption.
Allergy to grapes
Allergy to grapes, as we have already said, can lead to a reaction to grape wines, but this case is quite rare. Allergy to berries is not always the cause of allergy to wine.
The named reaction can be provoked by the peculiarities of wine production technology,the wort of which consists of entirely ground berries, since the allergens lie just in the skin of the berries. Specifically, in lipid transport proteins, chitinases and thaumatin-protein compounds. True, their content is so low that cases of allergy to grapes are extremely small.
By the way, allergies to red wine are more common than white wine.
Supplement Allergy
Additional components of wine can also cause allergies:
-
Clarifiers. Substances found in gelatin, dairy products and chicken eggs are used to clarify drinks, which can be dangerous for those who are allergic to these products. Conscientious suppliers write about their content on the labels, so allergy sufferers should carefully study it before buying.
- Pollutants. A frequent case of wine allergy, the photo of which you can see in the article, is the ingestion of a berry infected with mold spores into a drink. This is only found in homemade drinks, as wine companies carefully monitor their plantations, which cannot be said about lovers. Another pollutant is grape pollen. If a person is allergic to it, then it can manifest itself to wine. Most often, pollen is found in young wine from early grape varieties.
Symptoms
A red wine allergy has the same symptoms as any other allergy. Without a medical examination, find out for whatwine and what allergen they showed up for is impossible.
As a rule, an acute reaction appears immediately after drinking a drink with a complex of indications, in accordance with the characteristics of the organism. There are only two types of allergic reactions to wine:
- Delayed - redness and rash that takes three to twelve hours.
- Immediate - urticaria and, in rare cases, angioedema.
Manifestation
Let's list the symptoms in more detail:
- Most often, allergy after wine is accompanied by hyperemia - redness of the skin of the hands, face and neck. An allergic person gets itchy and has a fever.
- Often swelling of the mucous membranes of the eyes, mouth and nose. And if in the first case, redness of the skin does not lead to anything dangerous, then swelling of the throat can cause asphyxia - suffocation.
- Mucous nasal discharge, sneezing, watery eyes - all this indicates the manifestation of another symptom of an allergy to wine - allergic rhinitis.
- After a while, an allergic person may develop hive-like blisters.
- In some cases, dry red wine can trigger a migraine and increase blood pressure in an allergic person.
- Severe reactions can cause nausea, lower blood pressure, convulsions and asthma attacks. Rarely, Quincke's edema may also develop.
All these manifestations threaten the life of an allergic person, and the last and worst of the manifestations of an allergy to wine, in which death occurs within a few minutes, is anaphylacticshock.
Treatment
It is impossible to start serious treatment of an allergy to wine (white, rose, red) without the advice of a specialist and a thorough diagnosis to identify the allergen, otherwise the drug can harm. Together with the allergist, a course of therapy is drawn up that is suitable for a particular patient.
Often, not antihistamines are used, but remedies aimed at eliminating a narrow range of symptoms that a person develops in response to the presence of an allergen. As in the prevention of allergies, so in the treatment should be excluded any, even the smallest doses of wine and products that cause the described reaction.
Most often, the same medications are used for wine allergies as for alcohol allergies in general. These are, first of all, antihistamines:
- "Tavegil";
- "Zyrtec";
- "Cetirizine".
Familiar to absolutely everyone, "Suprastin" can be used only in the absence of a history of bronchial asthma and signs of bronchoconstriction - suffocation, cough, beginning swelling of the throat.
Allergy ointment will be effective in dermatological manifestations of the disease. A particularly effective medication in this case is Gistan. It removes irritation and inflammation.
For signs of any nature, it is also recommended to take enterosorbents to quickly remove toxins from the body.
First Aid
If you watch the manifestationan undesirable reaction to wine, then the sufferer can be given all possible assistance. To do this, follow:
- make a gastric lavage (if there is no acute life-threatening condition) - artificially provoke vomiting;
- give an antihistamine medication, enterosorbent;
- make sure there is no urge to vomit and after that offer to lie down.
If the condition worsens or if the allergy is initially severe, seek medical help as soon as possible.
Folk treatments
Among the folk ways to cure allergies, chamomile decoction will be effective, while used both internally and externally. Sage, yarrow, string and mint are some of the best helpers in the war against hypersensitivity symptoms. Don't forget to drink plenty of water as well.
Despite the fact that this is not an allergy therapy as such, however, for the fastest removal of toxic elements from the body, such effects are very effective. As soon as the irritant is removed, undesirable phenomena will begin to decrease, and soon they will completely disappear. The usual way of human existence will not change (until the next meeting with the allergen). But if you ignore the requirement of the need to refrain from drinking alcoholic beverages, then the patient may develop various kinds of pathologies.
The so-called false allergy is not uncommon these days, in the appearance of which factors such as the amountand the quality of drinking, the speed of its use, the general tolerance of alcohol and the emotional state of a person. After all, the reaction to the use of alcoholic beverages can be completely different and not at all the one that is usually expected. Thus, an absolutely terrible state with the proper signs may appear instead of the euphoria of alcohol intoxication. It is explained by a “sudden” allergy to alcohol.
Precautions
People suffering from any kind of allergies should be extremely careful in choosing products to the smallest detail. The most effective measure to prevent an allergic reaction to wine is a complete rejection of its use. If this is not possible, then reduce the consumption of wine drinks to a minimum.
First of all, a person with an allergy should be diagnosed to identify the allergen and exclude inappropriate drinks and everything that contains it from their diet. It is best to give preference to aged wine products and choose white wines - they are safer and do not contain natural allergens. But all this is only after consulting with a specialist. After all, it may be that even the smallest dose of wine for a person suffering from allergies is not desirable. You should clearly control the amount of wine you drink and do not overdo it.
Snacks for those who decide to drink an allergy should also be treated very carefully, as alcohol helps allergens to be absorbed into the blood faster and speed up the process of an undesirable reaction. Do not use antihistamines inas a precaution before drinking alcohol, the drug, reacting with alcohol, can only provoke an allergy. And the very use of medicines with alcoholic beverages has a rather negative effect on the functioning of the kidneys, nervous system and liver.
And most importantly - people who are allergic to wine should remember that the use of a product containing an allergen in small doses will not cause oral tolerance and "like with like" cannot be cured. All this will only aggravate the situation and lead to unforeseen and more unfortunate consequences.
