Allergy : is your face cream responsible ? maintain allergy sensitivity card.

Allergy can be because of thousands of different reasons and having allergy due to face cream is nothing new to talk about. Recently a patient visited me with complaint of running nose and asked for some medicine. On inquiring we came to know two days back he started applying a face cream. I asked him to stop that face cream in addition to an anti-allergic. He was asked to come back after 15 days after retrying the cream. He came back with same running nose. The cause appeared to be the face cream. It is not so easy in every case to find out the allergens and patients often spent lot of time and money to find out the allergens.  However, it is important to know which is your major allergens. Change in seasons results in changes in our diet and cosmetic inventory. We attribute a sudden gastric upset, temporary sneezes bout or running nose, skin rashes, eye allergy, bout of ashthma to allergens in our surroundings. There is a need to include the list of cosmetics and dietary changes in the list of items that seem to precipitate and are required to be avoided. People suffering will be helped if they maintain an allergy sensitivity card with date wise notation of type of cosmetic or food components in use and any symptoms felt. In cosmetics it can be fruit extracts, seed oils, preservatives, diluent etc. In food it can be nuts, mix of certain items like brinjal and curd, or sea-fish and milk products, certain fruits, berries etc. Having a watchful monitoring would certainly be of much help. It needs some patience and care.