When to Seek Medical Care for Allergic Reactions

Video Transcript

"We are going to help you decide when you should seek medical attention with an allergic reaction. Now allergic reactions are a very common thing. I am sure everyone out there has experienced some type of allergy in their lifetime. Now when you want to consider medical attention was when there is several factors that are going to influence it. Now if we start off with the basic allergic reaction it is something that you might not need to go to the hospital right away for. Say for instance you go up to the mountains on vacation you begin to have the sniffles and a minor cough. That is a good chance that is not going to be anaphylaxis. If you get stung by a bee, it stings a little bit, and it doesn't spread anywhere there is a good chance that's not going to be. Now when you want to be concerned about anaphylaxis is the biggest thing for anaphylaxis is it is going to be a rapid progression of the allergy. So you may get stung and within a few minutes, you are going to notice that the rash is maybe spread up your arm. Maybe it spread from the site and then it is going to be accompanied by other symptoms also. So you want to be very aware of the symptoms that we covered earlier and be willing to recognize these symptoms. Again, the most important thing that you have to recognize is if they begin to have, someone begins to have difficulty breathing, if they begin to feel dizzy or faint. Anything that is going cause them to have trouble breathing would be the biggest concern. And then as we mentioned all the other symptoms earlier those would be big. So I would say anything beyond a minor skin rash or a minor irritation is when you would want to seek medical direction, medical help. Now depending on where you live and what your situation is there is different ways to seek medical help. You can call your doctor. We always advise, we always recommend pre hospital care as a paramedic. I always advise that you do the fastest way and that would be to call 911 first. Once we get there, we can help you decide what is the best choice to take. If you don't think, it is that serious and you prefer to go to your local doctor that is better than doing nothing. Or you can if you are right next to the hospital it might be quicker for you just to drive across the street and go to the hospital. Have someone drive you. You never want the person that is experiencing the reaction to be responsible for driving the vehicle."