ALLERGY, FOOD

An allergy for food means there is a hypersensitive reaction to certain substances in your pet’s daily food. When the immune system is functioning as it should, it does not react to these relatively harmless substances, because they do not harm the body. However, a weakened or disturbed immune system does respond violently to these substances, having a very negative effect.

In general a food allergy can occur at any age, but it is more frequent in younger animals. It is possible that a cat, eating the same brand of food for years, suddenly develops an itch. An allergy builds up slowly. Because most brands of food have the same basic ingredients and protein sources, an allergy can also occur in animals getting different brands of food.

Symptoms of a food allergy

First signs of a food allergy are mostly skin-related, for example a rash that looks like eczema. Those skin problems can differ from one animal to the other.:

• A skin problem that involves small crusts. Dogs or cats are itching, especially in the groin area and the back part of the body, resulting in an inflamed skin and lots of small crusts in the affected area. Sometimes cats even can get these crusts over the whole body, so also in the head and neck area. This is called atopic dermatitis.
• Skin problems that involve a row of elongated bumps on the skin, or round, well defined, raised spots with a yellow–pink colour.
  The bumps and/or spots are called eosinophilic granuloma. These bumps often occur on the inside of the knee, but they can occur elsewhere on the body. The spots occur for example on the soles, around the edges of the lips, the cavity of the mouth and the chin.
  Because these spots usually do not cause pain, discovery is mostly accidental. An eosinophilic granuloma in the cavity of the mouth can cause excess salivation and poor food intake. Not only can your pet develop an eosinophilic granuloma, it can also develop bald spots caused by constant licking. These different symptoms can occur simultaneously in your pet. If there is itching, it is mostly located on the head, ear lobes and neck. In some cases itching can occur all over the body.
• In some cases food allergy can cause digestion problems, such as diarrhoea and vomiting. In some of these cases itching can also occur.

Treatment

Skin problems caused by a food allergy are very similar to those caused by a flea allergy. Therefore food allergy should be diagnosed through a diet. A commercial hypoallergenic diet is not reliable. These diets contain too many food components; a negative test result does not rule out a food allergy. An elimination diet is the only correct way to diagnose a food allergy. Once it is established that an allergy is caused by a certain substance in the food, the first thing to do is not feed this substance to your pet anymore. This will not immediately solve the skin problems, but it will a new allergic reaction.

An efficient elimination diet has to be home made and exists of one type of meat that the animal has never eaten before (and thus no allergic reaction can have occurred yet). As a carbohydrate source boiled rice or pasta can be used. The diet needs to be fed for at least 6 weeks. No other food can be given, so no milk, sausages or other treats. To prevent your pet from eating something “forbidden” outdoors, your pet should be kept indoors during the trial period, or when going outside it should be accompanied by its owner.

In short, the treatment exists in preventing the intake of the original food which contains the components that caused the allergy. Eventually this diet needs to be replaced by a commercial hypoallergenic diet. When a diagnosis is made by means of the elimination diet, a test period with different types of hypoallergenic food will follow in order to determine which food is suitable for the patient.

It is important to prevent a new allergic reaction when treating a food allergy .It is also very important to treat the immune system. A symptomatic treatment of the itching with corticosteroids usually has no effect on the food allergy. The most important thing is to eliminate the food that caused the allergic reaction. The treatment can be supported with the Chinese herbal formula Resilium, which works directly on the disturbed immune system.

	Resilium™, 1200 mg tablets	90 tablets	£ 22,95
	Resilium™, 1200 mg tablets	180 tablets	£ 43,50

Resilium tablet 1200 mg

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