Blisters on fingers and depression - could it be allergy-related?

I just got a question from Kate, who is experiencing blisters on her fingers, and mood problems.

What she describes could be an allergy, but not necessarily.

Read the advice I gave her. Leave comments if you have your own ideas.

I have just expanded the article on allergy symptoms.

Beyond a simple explanation of symptoms, there is also a long list of symptoms that can possibly ocure due to allergies.

Anemia is the medical term for a low level of hemoglobin in the blood.

Hemoglobin is responsible for carrying oxygen in the blood. A low level of hemoglobin reduces your ability to carry oxygen, causing weakness, fatigue and several other symptoms.

This reduces your ability to perform physical activities, because the muscles, lacking oxygen, have less power.

Symptoms of Anemia

Mild anemia can be hard to detect. The greater the deficiency in hemoglobin, the greater the symptoms.

Someone with anemia may have some or all of the following symptoms:

I've been suffering from the flu for the past few days. I am reminded that many allergy symptoms are similar to flu symptoms.

One particular symptom I've been having with this bout of flu is gummy eyes. At times, my eye-lashes have been all but glued together, especially when I am asleep.

Now I remember: before I got my allergies under control, I had this all the time, although less severe. Part of waking up was "sleep in my eyes", little hard bits of goop stuck to my eye-lashes and around my eyes.

Many of the symptoms caused by allergies are also similar to food poisoning. This is especially true of stomach upset, diarrhea, and unpleasant side-effects along those lines (see gluten allergy symptoms for some specific examples).

With the possibility of having identical symptoms, how do you know if you really have allergies, or if you are dealing with food poisoning?

First of all, the allergy symptoms are not identical to food poisoning symptoms in most cases. There are often other effects that are not the same as food poisoning.

One of the symptoms some people with allergies experience is some degree of depression.

There are two general causes for this:

1. A symptom of the allergy itself
2. A side-effect of allergy medication.

Here is one description of the effects of using allergy medication:

Can allergies affect your mood?

You bet they can!

For a start, they can lead the negative basic emotions such as anger. They can also lead to depression, mood swings, irritability, lack of motivation, frustration, and a general deterioration of emotional health and well-being.

Choose a negative emotion, and there is a good chance that allergies can cause it or make it worse.

In my own experience, insomnia is one allergy symptom, which in itself can can lead to many of the above problems with mood.

Allergy symptoms are the clues that indicate that your immune system is reacting to allergens.

There are many clues which might indicate allergies, but they are often extremely hard to read. Just because one person has certain symptoms, does not mean to say that someone else with those symptoms is allergic to the same thing, or in deed anything at all. Two people with the same allergy may have different symptoms.