What is an Allergy?
Although the term "Allergy" has been used widely in the medical profession and the public sphere for decades, knowledge about the nature of allergies and their implications is still in its infancy.

Many people continue to think of allergies as a limited group of symptoms such as runny nose, sneezing, hives, asthma, hay fever, or occasionally a severe response such as anaphylactic shock. Fortunately, increasing numbers of health professionals are beginning to recognise allergic reactions as factors in many illnesses and disorders. Allergies are understood to be an unusual sensitivity to certain substances which cause an inappropriate immune response.

An allergy may result from numerous causes, including repeated exposure to a particularly strong or toxic allergen which exhausts the body’s defences, or from events such as serious trauma, major surgery, anaesthetic, vaccinations, and emotional stresses such as loss of a loved one, marriage, child birth, moving house. Stress and anxiety will make a sufferer more sensitive to the allergen and symptoms will worsen. There are twelve Meridians or Energy lines in the body, the energy of an allergen will disrupt the flow of energy in one or more meridian, resulting in weakness or malfunction in organs associated with that meridian.

Allergy or intolerance?
In truly allergic cases the body will produce antibodies to an allergen. Various blood and skin tests can be used to diagnose these allergies. However, in less severe cases where sufferers are intolerant to allergens the body has not produced antibodies and the blood and skin tests often produce a negative result, particularly when food items are tested. This can be confusing to the sufferer, as they will know that certain items do produce an allergic type reaction. Muscle response testing from applied Kinesiology can successfully identify both allergies and intolerances.