bp's science: antihistamines (v.1)

Today we went to the park. And I sneezed a bit. I never had allergies growing up, but since moving here, I have experienced the runny nose and sinus pressure that comes with allergies. It really isn't bad, but it's there.

So with that, I make a very simple bp's science post today. What are antihistamines and what do they do? To understand antihistamines, we must talk histamines. Histamines are proteins that activate certain activities in the body. Some of these activities include brain function, stomach acid release, and immune response. The last one is what causes allergies. When an allergen enters the nose, histamines are released to activate the increase of vascular permeability causing a runny nose and sneezing. Those histamines think that pollen is coming to destroy your health so it responds as such. An antihistamine (like Claritin or Allegra) works by attaching to histamine receptors and thereby blocking the histamines from ever activating anything.

Think of this: It's a hot summer day and histamine is represented by a wool hat. Your head is a histamine receptor. If you were to put on this wool hat, your head would get all hot and sweaty (which would start to run down your forehead, much like mucus starts to run out of your nose - gross, eh?). Now an antihistamine is represented by a wide brimmed sun hat. Instead of putting on the wool hat, let's say you put on the sun hat so your head is cool and well ventilated. Now once you put on that sun hat, you can't get the wool hat on (or it won't fit on) and thus your head does not get hot and really sweaty (in other words, you don't have the allergic reaction). Does that make sense? Hope so.

photo from knitting my first hat (2010), which was ironically too big for Oliver and too small for me -haha