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| Insects Allergies | Allergies to insects can be triggered by bites, stings, cast off hairs or scales. By much more serious are those provoked by bee and wasp stings. In the United States they lead to more deaths than bites from poisonous animals. The majority of people do not suffer more than minor signs. But few can experience severe illness and even lethal end.
Current researches on bee stings have released some interesting facts. The bee, if taken away, will leave both its sting and a poison sac which continues to impel poison through the barb into the victim. On the other hand, if the bee is left to remove the sting itself, the injection of poison is much less, outgoing in negligible discomfort. Wasps have a dissimilar type of sting mechanism resulting in the victim receiving a full dose every time.
A few people may develop a partial immunity to bee and wasp stings that can grow the more they are stung. Others may turn out to be more and more susceptible until they get to a point where they develop a large-scale reaction to stings and can die. We are not, nevertheless, talking about the unlucky person who is stung many times by a group of such insects. That situation would result in serious consequences, irrespective of sensitivity.
Stepphen Grifitts popular Australian author wrote this story in his book:
“While I was on army service in Africa, we suffered at times from tsetse fly bites. On crossing from a controlled area into a fly area, we would be assailed by swarms of these insects which in the course of a day's patrolling, would leave one's body covered with hundreds of bites. After a few days, a type of semi-immunity would develop which seemed to result in fewer bites and less discomfort. Some times, however, an individual soldier would not develop this immunity. Instead, his sensitivity would increase causing sickness and fever and finally lead to his evacuation.”
This is a model of how some people can increase tolerance by repeated contact, at the same time as others become more sensitized.
The typical reaction to stings by a non-allergic person is one of gentleness and localized swelling that fades after a while. Reactions by the allergic person, on the other hand, can engage swelling in other areas of the body, aching joints, a general rash and a feeling of faintness and sickness. Harsh reactions, provoked by the sudden release of huge quantities of histamine, can radically reduce the blood pressure, influence the heart and lead to unconsciousness and even death. An immediate injection of adrenalin is needed in such cases if the victim is to survive.
Other insects like mosquitoes, midges and horseflies can trigger reactions by their bite, flowing in a discomforting collection of symptoms that are hardly ever hazardous. One significant fact rising in current years is that people tend to simple allergies like insects, pollen, etc. often have food and chemical allergies as well. When this is the case their reaction is habitually harsher than that of the allergy-free person. This means that an immune system, free from the stresses of an overloaded toxic condition, is better supplied to cope with all types of allergies, regardless of their source.
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