Quincke edema awareness

  • 2010-05-20
  • By Anastasia Alekseyeva. School of Aesthetic Cosmetology, lecturer.

AUTHOR: Mauricius ( 87.110.30.18 ): Is there a risk of Quincke’s edema if I am an allergic person?

Allergy is an epidemic which overcame all countries in the world and has a tendency to increase in 21st century.
 An allergic reaction is a supersensitivity of the immune system at the repeated influence of allergen on before sensibilized organism. The symptoms usually are eye’s pang, edema, rheum, hives, sneezing etc.
Many people consider allergy as an inoffensive disease. But some allergic reactions go instantly, therefore sometimes a person requires urgent medical care.

Nettle rash and Quincke’s edema are widespread. It is statistically proven that each fifth person on Earth had allergic edema once in his life. Quincke’s edema was described in 1882 by a German doctor – internist and surgeon Henry Quincke.

This disease got its name for characteristic displays: blisters as though they appear after nettle’s burn. These blisters are accompanied by reddening, edema, itching. A fervescence, weakness and headache are also possible. Hives can be local or generalized, acute or chronic. Depending on the reason of allergic reaction’s origin we can separate physical – warm, cold, pressure, solar radiation; mechanical – in the place of skin’s irritation; antheriferous etc. When the reason can not be found – hives are named idiopatic.

Quincke’s edema is an angioneurotic edema or giant hives that differs from ordinary hives in skin defeat depth. The giant edema mostly appears in places with loose cellulose – on lips, eyelids, cheeks, mucous membrane of mouth and on genital organs. In typical cases edema disappears in few hours (2/3 to 24 hours), if not – those patients must be hospitalized. A special form of inherited angioneurotic edema is distinguished – it is related to insufficiency of specific inhibitor. Men have allergy more frequently, it is characterized by positive family anamnesis, microtraumas and stress. Predisposing factors can be parasitogenic and viral infections (giardiasis, hepatitis, intestinal worms) or endocrine system’s diseases (for example, thyroiditis).

If you don’t render help to Quincke’s edema patients, they can perish from edema of larynx and ceiling of access of air to lungs. In addition serious Quincke’s edema may complicate as an immediate allergic reaction – anaphylactic shock.
Treatment of Quincke’s edema is the first aid – eliminate the action of allergen, quiet the patient, provide access to fresh air ( take off tie/belt, unbutton collar, open the window), get a cold compress and lay it on the staggered area for diminishing of itch and edema, begin to drip into nose vasoconstrictor drops (for example Naphthyzinum).

The first medical aid consists of antihistamine injection (for example Suprastinum or Dimedrolum) to remove the edema. If edema spreads very quickly and violations of breathing appears, glucocorticoid hormones are indicated.
To those who ever had Qiuncke’s edema a hypoallergic diet is appointed – exception of food allergens as eggs, milk, wheat, fish, nuts, tomatoes, chocolate, citrus. A prophylaxis of Quincke’s edema is to cure all types of chronic infections – carious teeth or adenoids, because they assist general allergization of organism. Periodically, courses of antiallergic medicine can be appointed, for example, in the period of plants flowering.

In the past few years an expressed number of morbidity is marked as an allergy. There are different theories explaining this phenomenon: a hygiene hypothesis by David P. Strachan which says that observance of norms of hygiene prevents organism’s contact with antigens, that causes the insufficient loading of the immune system (in particular case for children). As our body is constructed so, that it must constantly resist to the certain level of threats, the immune system begins to react on inoffensive antigens. Epidemiologically proved that different immunological and autoimmune diseases occur more seldom in the countries of the third world. Nowadays, genetically modified food can cause pre-conditions for development of allergic reaction by means of parafunction of the nervous and endocrine system.

However, in spite of numerous attempts to explain an increase of allergic diseases influenced by technogenic environment, until now there were no explanations given.