Friday, August 21, 2009

Black Pepper Allergy

by Estella Reed

Black pepper is an ingredient native to India, but used worldwide in our cuisines as a spice and seasoning. It also has a medicinal value and may be found as one of the constituents of your herbal remedies.

Powdered black pepper is often used in our flavorings and it is not uncommon to sneeze while using it. This is perhaps not always due to an allergic reaction to black pepper, but because our nasal mucosa gets irritated with the sniffed black pepper particles.

The irritation causes us to sneeze as a natural response to expel the offending agent.

Symptoms:
Allergy to black pepper is not very common. Those people who are allergic to celery and pollen show a higher rate of allergy to black pepper.

Symptoms can occur on exposure to black pepper in any form. Common symptoms of allergic reaction to pepper depend on how the pepper comes in contact with you. Since black, white and green peppers are the same fruit in different stages of processing, if you are allergic to black pepper, it will be no surprise to find you are allergic to white and green peppers as well.

If you are using a topical remedy containing pepper, you may experience rash, redness, itching and blistering of the skin as features of allergic contact dermatitis. This will usually be seen on the area of skin which came in contact with the pepper, but it may spread to other areas too.

If your food contains pepper, you may experience redness, rash, hives and itching of the skin along with abdominal pain, cramps, gas, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

If ground pepper powder is accidentally inhaled, you may experience sneezing, runny nose and redness, itching and watering of eyes. You may also have skin reactions in the form of redness, rash and itching of your skin.

These reactions may be seen immediately after exposure to pepper or they may be delayed for a few minutes.

Treatment:
Treatment of allergic reactions to black pepper is mainly with antihistamines. If you have a runny nose, decongestants may relieve you. If your allergy is not getting better with over-the-counter drugs, you should see your doctor for advice.

Prevention
If you are allergic to black pepper, you should avoid any form of contact with pepper. This means avoiding black, white and green peppers because the allergy causing substances are the same in all of them.



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