Atopic Allergy

Atopy is a special type of allergy in which the individual is born with an increased tendency to develop allergic reactions to a variety of environmental agents. The manifestations of allergy include asthma (episodic attacks of breathlessness), allergic rhinitis (excessive sneezing, blockage and watering of the nose), urticaria (sudden eruptions of wheals), and atopic dermatitis (a characteristic type of a dermatitic reaction). The substances to which an atopic individual develops allergy include pollen and other inhalants, food, bacterial infections, parasitic infestations and less commonly other agents.

Atopic diseases are hereditary in nature and often several members in the family suffer from one or the other type of allergic manifestations. It is however, flot necessary that all members in the family should develop the same type of allergy, e.g. if the parent suffers from asthma, the child may develop urticaria or atopic dermatitis and vice versa. Thus, the information that one or more blood relations suffer from any of the atopic diseases tends to suggest that the individual may also be atopic. If both parents are atopic, most children are also likely to be atopic, although not necessarily all the children. If one parent is atopic, some children are likely to be atopic while others are not.

Although a person is born as an atopic individual, the manifestations of the disease are not present at birth. The manifestations appear only after the individual has developed allergy to some agent, and this may take a few months to even several years after the birth and rarely, it may not happen at all. Thus, an atopic individual is born with an increased tendency to develop allergy but he is not born with an allergy. The atopic state persists throughout life and an atopic individual continues to have an increased tendency to develop allergy to new agents throughout life. Therefore, a person tolerating the substance without any allergic reactions may later on start developing the allergic reaction to the substance which he was tolerating earlier.