Allergy and Psychosomatics

Allergy and Psychosomatics: How Stress Affects the Disease

Sometimes a stressful situation becomes the trigger for an illness, and allergy is no exception. As the well-known psychotherapist Irvin Yalom put it: “A person does not choose their illness, but they choose stress — and it is stress that chooses the illness.” This phrase illustrates the psychosomatic roots of many diseases well.

What Is Psychosomatics?

In Greek, psycho means “soul” and somatos means “body.” Psychosomatics explains the influence of emotions on health. About forty diseases are known to have a psychological etiology, including allergic diseases.

Allergy and Stress

The stress theory holds that the root of a disease may be excessive psychological strain — moving house, divorce, the loss of loved ones, exams and other events. The more strongly a person reacts emotionally to a stressful situation, the more severe the subsequent illness may be.

Scientific studies have confirmed the significant role of stress in the onset of disease: it causes changes in the body's endocrine, nervous and cardiovascular systems. Emotions such as fear, rage, fright and guilt can trigger an allergic reaction.

When the psychological trigger is removed and negative emotions subside, the symptoms of the disease may also disappear.

How to Tell Whether an Allergy Has a Psychosomatic Cause

Allergy cannot be caused by psychological factors alone — an allergen (plant pollen, animal dander, food allergens, etc.) is always involved alongside them. Treatment therefore has to address two aspects: psychological and somatic.

To make a correct psychosomatic diagnosis, the physician needs to take a history that includes the events preceding the allergic disease, identify stressful situations and build a chronological picture.

Diagnosis and Treatment

Once a psychological factor has been established, the next step is a somatic examination:

• Review and analysis of the medical history;
• Clinical laboratory tests;
• Allergy testing: skin prick tests, skin tests, blood tests for immunoglobulin E (IgE);
• Additional laboratory tests.

Prevention

Preventive measures are fairly simple: keeping a regular daily routine, avoiding toxic situations and people, responding to stressful moments in a balanced way and, if necessary, seeing a professional psychotherapist.

KombiMED supplies equipment for comprehensive allergy diagnostics — from skin prick tests to molecular analysis — helping physicians accurately identify the cause of the disease.