"no! After accidentally eating shrimp last night, my whole body broke out in a rash, and my eyes and lips were swollen to death! 」
"Ha ha, fortunately, not too serious. It's not like Du in the movie who ran out of the sausage mouth! Speaking of angioedema, everyone should run out of the funny sausage mouth image of handsome Tony Leung Chiu Wai. In fact, angioedema represents the loss of fluid in blood vessels. Where did the lost liquid go? That is, it will run into the surrounding skin and tissues, causing edema. Why does liquid escape from blood vessels? It turns out that after foreign substances enter the body, our body mistakenly thinks that it is some kind of toxic and harmful substances, so the body will release chemicals to attack these foreign substances, and the chemicals released by the body will lead to the loss of vascular fluid and edema. So theoretically, angioedema may occur anywhere in the body, but we should observe from our own experience or others' experience that angioedema most often occurs around the eyes, lips, tongue, hands, feet and groin.
So what substances the body touches will be "mistaken" and cause vascular edema? In fact, there are many reasons for eye swelling and mouth swelling. Let's have a look. Allergy is one of the most common causes, which everyone should be familiar with. Sometimes, after eating food and drugs that are "out of step" with the body, the whole mouth will swell up. Common food allergens include peanuts, shelled seafood, milk and eggs. (Now, in food packaging, warnings will mention several food ingredients, such as "this product contains nuts such as peanuts", and you often see ingredients that ordinary people are allergic to).
Some people are allergic to drugs. Common drugs that can cause allergies in patients include antibiotics, aspirin, non-anti-inflammatory painkillers and so on. So some people are allergic after taking cold medicine, which may be caused by anti-inflammatory drugs or antibiotics with antipyretic effect. Remember to remember the name of the drug at this time! Copy a small note and put it in the medical insurance card to remind the doctor not to prescribe those drugs next time he sees a doctor. )
In addition to drugs and food, being bitten by mosquitoes such as bees can also cause vascular edema. In addition to the swelling of the bitten area, swelling around the eyes may also begin. In severe allergies, even the tongue and respiratory tract are edema, which affects breathing and life safety.
Latex is another common allergen. It is a rubber product with a wide range of uses. Some people are allergic after wearing latex gloves and touching balloons. Condoms made of latex are also one of the culprits of allergies. Drug allergy and food allergy are almost the most common causes of vascular edema, but do you know? Sometimes drugs can also cause another kind of vascular edema. This kind of vascular edema related to drugs, but not allergic, does not make people itch, and this edema does not necessarily appear immediately after taking the drug, or even after taking the same drug for half a year or a year. In "Diagnosis and First-line Treatment of Hypertension", we introduced two commonly used drugs to control blood pressure: ACEI and ARB. ACEI is the abbreviation of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor, which is called angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor in Chinese. ARBs stands for angiotensin receptor blocker, and Chinese stands for angiotensin receptor blocker. The target of these two drugs is "renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system", and both of them can relax blood vessels and lower blood pressure. However, some patients will have side effects of vascular edema after taking it.
In addition, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkillers, such as ibuprofen, a common antipyretic analgesic, may also cause non-allergic edema.
Moreover, angioedema is hereditary and related to the lack of an enzyme in the body. Without this enzyme, the immune system will occasionally shoot and attack indiscriminately, causing vascular edema. Patients with this genetic inheritance will face stress such as injury, infection, surgery, stress and pregnancy. The immune system will start to attack and cause edema. Some patients even have edema once a week, and some patients only have edema once a year or so.
Some cancers (such as lymphoma), infections and autoimmune diseases (such as lupus erythematosus) can also activate the immune system's ability to fight back, and the release of chemicals can lead to vascular edema. However, there are also some patients with angioedema who can't find the cause from beginning to end.
The manifestations of angioedema are usually not too serious, but they are easy to recur and sometimes even make patients life-threatening. The most common manifestation is swelling around the eyes, lips and tongue of patients. At the same time, there may be a slightly convex and itchy rash floating on the skin surface, which is called urticaria. It may also be accompanied by conjunctivitis, and the patient's whole eyes are red, itchy and stinging. Some patients will also have gastrointestinal swelling. Of course, we can't see that the intestines are swollen directly through the stomach. However, when a patient with vascular edema has abdominal pain, feels uncomfortable, or starts diarrhea, it is likely that his intestines will also have edema problems! Generally speaking, angioedema lasts for several minutes to several hours. In the meantime, you can take antihistamines and steroids according to the doctor's instructions to get through this edema period as soon as possible. As we said before, the body will be edematous because of the release of a large number of chemicals, which will lead to the exudation of liquid in blood vessels and edema of tissues. One of the chemicals released by the body is histamine, so taking antihistamines can reduce the degree of swelling. However, these drugs sometimes make people sleepy. If you have taken antihistamines, don't drive, operate machines or continue drinking.
If it is the first attack, it is best to find out which event caused vascular edema. Reviewing the past few hours or days will help you to judge. For example, the patient said that he had just eaten allergic food at dinner, and his skin appeared red and itchy urticaria in the middle of the night, and his eyes and lips suddenly swelled. This food is probably the chief culprit of vascular edema. If you have never used ACEI antihypertensive drugs in the past, and your hands and feet are swollen one month after taking them, you should suspect that it is caused by drugs.
If you are allergic, try to avoid the same food or medicine afterwards. It is very important to avoid allergens. Therefore, before we go to clinics and hospitals for medical treatment, there will be a column in the initial information form asking everyone to fill in whether they have any drug allergies or food allergies in the past, that is, they are afraid that similar drugs will endanger the lives of patients. Please remember to fill it out truthfully. Be responsible for your health! If you go out to eat in a restaurant, or before you buy foreign food, you should pay attention to the label of the contents, whether they contain peanuts, eggs, seafood and other raw materials that will make you allergic. If so, you should avoid them.
Why should people pay attention to and avoid these allergens that cause angioedema? Because sometimes vascular edema can be very serious. You must have heard the news that after a child ate a peanut, the whole person was speechless, out of breath and suddenly died! If vascular edema is too serious and the edema range is large, our respiratory tract will become swollen, or our blood pressure will change, which will endanger our lives. The patient's performance will gradually become breathless, the breathing sound will change, become thick and loud, feel dizzy, and even suddenly faint. These are all signs that need emergency treatment when angioedema attacks, so we must pay attention to them! If you really encounter this problem unfortunately, you can only save it by injecting adrenaline in time!