Hormonal allergies

Hormonal allergy is one of the most insidious and difficult to differentiate types of allergies. The insidiousness of this type of allergy lies in the vagueness of symptoms, cyclic occurrence and fairly regular self-healing. The clinical picture of hormonal allergy can be masked as manifestations of food, household allergies, with a high degree of probability its primary manifestations will be diagnosed by a therapist as a seasonal somatic disease.

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How does hormonal allergy develop?

However, hormonal allergy has indisputable signs of serious disorders of the immune response. The human immune system, unfortunately, is capable of failure and the formation of various immunopathological processes, the main ones being immune insufficiency, or immunodeficiency, and hyperimmune response, i.e. an allergic reaction. Due to the fact that with hormonal allergy, the allergen is produced by the human body and is in the bloodstream, such an immune reaction, directed against one's own protein complexes, is called an autoimmune reaction.

The human hormonal background is subject to cyclical changes (for example, ovulation cycles in women), and random, unpredictable fluctuations associated with the life of an individual (for example, the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline in stressful situations). The development of autoimmune reactions to changes in one's own hormonal background is possible in any person, but the diagnosis of the occurrence of urticaria after stressful conditions is complicated by the irregularity of the occurrence of stressful conditions themselves, so hormonal allergies are most easily tracked using the example of a woman's ovulatory cycle.

How does hormonal allergy manifest itself?

In some women suffering from urticaria of unknown etiology, due to stable and predictable changes in the hormonal background, the syndrome of APD - autoimmune progesterone dermatitis was identified and described. After ovulation, a corpus luteum begins to form in the ovary at the site of the release of the egg (luteal phase of the cycle), which is associated with an increase in the level of progesterone in the blood. It was during this period that some women complained of deterioration of the skin condition, hyperemia (redness), itching and rash, in isolated cases, damage (ulceration) of the mucous membranes were recorded. There were no cases of APD during pregnancy. Estrogen hormonal allergy also occurs. This type of allergy causes dermatitis during pregnancy, is part of the "premenstrual syndrome" complex.

How is hormonal allergy recognized?

To clarify the diagnosis of "hormonal allergy", it is customary to conduct allergy tests with the corresponding hormonal drugs. Treatment of this type of allergy is usually carried out using the sensitization method; in extremely rare cases, with persistent symptoms, treatment with hormonal drugs is carried out. The development of the mechanism of hormonal allergy can be provoked by various changes in the hormonal background, for example, pregnancy, treatment with hormonal drugs, a stressful state.

Classic cases of hormonal allergy manifestations are also the aggravation of asthma symptoms after psycho-emotional stress. It is possible to clarify the layering of symptoms of different types of allergies with the aggravation of asthma symptoms by testing the level of the corresponding immunoglobulins.

Today, it can be stated that hormonal allergy is quite widespread, and modern medicine takes into account its symptoms when treating complex diseases. However, this area of allergology is still in the stage of dynamic development and will soon present us with many more discoveries.