Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Causes
By Mayo Clinic staffYour immune system produces antibodies that defend against foreign substances. This is good when a foreign substance is harmful (such as a bacterium or virus). But some people's immune systems overreact to substances that shouldn't cause an allergic reaction. When this occurs, your immune system sets off a chemical chain reaction, leading to allergy symptoms. In most people, allergy symptoms are not life-threatening. But some people have a severe allergic reaction that can lead to anaphylaxis.
A number of allergens can trigger anaphylaxis, depending on what you're allergic to.
Common anaphylaxis triggers include:
- Certain medications, especially penicillin
- Foods such as peanuts, tree nuts (walnuts, pecans), fish, shellfish, milk and eggs
- Insect stings from bees, yellow jackets, wasps, hornets and fire ants
Less common causes of anaphylaxis include:
- Latex
- Muscle relaxants used in general anesthesia
- Exercise
Anaphylaxis triggered by exercise varies from person to person. In some people, aerobic activity such as jogging triggers anaphylaxis. In others, less intense physical activity such as yard work can trigger a reaction. Eating certain foods before exercise or exercising when the weather is hot, cold or humid has also been linked to anaphylaxis in some people. Talk with your doctor about any precautions you should take when exercising.
Anaphylaxis symptoms are sometimes caused by aspirin, other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs — such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others) and naproxen (Aleve, Midol Extended Relief) — and the intravenous (IV) contrast used in some X-ray imaging tests. Although similar to allergy-induced anaphylaxis, this type of reaction isn't triggered by allergy antibodies.
If you don't know what triggers your allergy attack, your doctor may do tests to try to identify the offending allergen. In some cases, the cause of anaphylaxis is never identified. This is known as idiopathic anaphylaxis.
