 Welcome to Nursing School Explained in this video on anaphylactic shock. So what happens physiologically, it is an acute, life-threatening, allergic reaction. Most commonly the triggers can be insects and bee stings are very common here. Benons such as from a poisonous animal and that can be anything like from a scorpion to a snake. Drugs and antibiotics can be the cause here or you might be familiar with ACE inhibitors being able to cause angioedema and then maybe even anaphylaxis. And then people can be allergic or anaphylactic to food as well. And common things that come to mind here are peanuts for example. So what happens the body responds to the exposure to the trigger by massive vasodilation which then causes a very significant and sudden drop in blood pressure and it can lead to circulatory failure. All of a sudden the blood vessels are completely leaky and the patient loses all their intravascular volume. And then release of vasodilactic mediators occurs that are in response to this trigger which increases the capillary permeability and that also affects the lungs and then we have all this fluid and constriction of the bronchioles leading to laryngeal edema and bronchospasm which can be life-threatening if not treated in a timely manner.