Skin Allergy Treatment

Skin allergies, or allergic contact dermatitis, are allergies of skin that occur when a substance that a person is allergic to touches the skin. The symptoms caused by this will appear suddenly and may disappear within half an hour after the attack. Inflammation can occur after being on contact with an item or substance that present no harm at all to people who do not suffer from this allergy.

Symptoms of Skin Allergies
People suffering from skin allergies may experience the following symptoms during an allergy attack:

* Skin rashes
* Blisters on the skin
* A sudden immobility (only in rare cases of extreme allergies of the skin)
* Scaling of the skin
* Hives (a rash looking like raised welts on the skin that itch and occur in batches

The symptoms are mostly experienced on the hands as they get in contact with items and substances all day long, during work or at home.

Types of Skin Allergies
The term eczema is sometimes interchanged with another skin allergy condition; dermatitis. Eczema is actually an advanced type of dermatitis with more serious results.

Allergic contact dermatitis
This skin allergy rash occurs when the skin touches an object or substance that it is allergic to. The symptom (a rash or itch) usually occurs within 30 minutes after touching the object. Inflammation of the skin can occur and the skin must not be scratched or covered with anything when this happens.

Eczema
This is a skin condition causing a red rash and itching on the skin. Eczema skin symptoms can cause a lot of discomfort and the disease is most likely to affect children. Eczema affects approximately seven in a thousand people and most of these patients are children aged between two months and five years old.

Eczema is a form of dermatitis in an advanced stage and can cause blisters and scabs and oozing liquid from the skin. A cure for eczema must be determined by a doctor and experimenting with over the counter treatments that offer relief is not advised when the condition has been diagnosed, especially not with children. Conventional allergy therapies seem to have no to little effect on eczema.

Hives
Skin hives are a type of skin rash that is usually harmless. Caused most of the time by an allergy this rash looks like circular raised welts on the skin that can go red and itchy. The hives will show up in batches and can appear all over the body. Hives can be different in size, ranging from very small to a few centimetres in diameter.

Diagnosis of Skin Allergies
Skin allergies are usually diagnosed by checking for skin rashes, the appearance of skin infection and itchy skin on the usual areas of the skin being mainly the face and chest but possibly also other areas. The doctor will probably check your family history with you to find out if any other relatives have the same problems. He will also review the following with you:

* Your diet, to make sure that there are no food allergies involved.
* Allergic tendencies (do you have more sensitive or allergic reactions).
* Prescribed drug intake that may affect the skin.

The doctor might decide to perform a blood test for skin condition called a radioallergosorbent test (RAST. A small amount of your blood is taken after which the blood is mixed with the suspected allergen. Antibodies developing in the blood are a sign of a skin allergy.

To further determine your diagnosis a skin lesion biopsy might also be performed during which a small piece of skin is removed and examined in a laboratory, where it is tested for symptoms of skin allergies.