Intolerence is usually a gut problem, an ige allergy,is when a protein enters your blood stream and your body mistakes it for a virus or bacteria, and over reacts. Allergy symptoms are caused by the massive rise of histamine released by these protective mast cells.
a contact reaction for an ige person would be a pollen /hay fever symptoms, or from food or animal when it touches the skin, causing hives, redness and eczema.
Intolerence (from what I understand of it, as am more secure in my ige knowledge) is again a protein problem that in upper gut irritates the valve that sits at the top of the stomach and leads to partialy digested food entering the gut through normal eating and digestion. Irritation, swelling to gut means that a wider selection of food is poorly digested.
Can lead to problems at both ends, or sometimes just the bowel, which is extremely painful.
Hence some infants/children who pass normal looking stools but scream in extreme pain when passing. This is due to the fact that protien irritates lining of bowel, and that there are more nerve endings in bowel than for instance in the brain. Hence the pain.
Exclusion diets are still recommended and sometimes a long list may be reduced once gut has time to heal. However for many it means a life time of avoiding the common main triggers, such as soya or milk.
An IgE contact allergy, for instance,if I use my son's history, who had total body hives after being hugged by a person who had eaten peanuts, or when his exposed skin hived when he stood behind me in the kitchen when I fried an egg when he was 3yrs old.
Larger hives, e.g bigger than a 50p or are joining and are spreading rapidly or over whole body can indcate the speed up and possibly a severe reaction.
Smaller contact reactions, are dealt with piriton, and washing the skin to remove allergen. A more severe reaction may mean epi pen and hosptial admission.
is this helpful?