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| Diagnosing | You may recognize the symptoms yourself, based on previous experience. If you seek medical treatment, your physician will examine the rash and ask you about contact with substances to which you may be allergic. Your physician will want to know if you have taken any medicine (including nonprescription medicines) and what you have eaten recently. In some case the simple discussion and your body’s examination are enough to prescribe to you a course of treatment. But it is not always so. There are two most often used scientific methods to diagnose allergies: blood test and skin test. The first one is more expensive and can be less sensitive. It is used less often. The second one is a widely used one.
Over more than a hundred years the doctors use the skin tests to diagnose allergies. You should not be afraid of them. During these tests, your skin is exposed to allergy-causing substances (allergens) and then is observed for signs of an allergic reaction. Skin tests are a safe and reliable method which can identify the substances that trigger the allergic reaction and help to make the plan of treating allergies. Such symptoms as sneezing, itching and others do not necessary mean that you have got the allergies. Your experience and observations are very important but in particular cases they are not enough to identify allergies. Skin tests are a more reliable method.
Generally skin tests are safe for all the patients, but in some cases your doctor will not recommend the skin test. The reasons to avoid this test are the following:
o You take medications that interfere with test results. The examples of such medicines are: antihistamines, many antidepressants and some heartburn medications. The doctor will advise you to take these medications as they may be extremely important for your health and it is allowed for you to break the course. In case the medications do not influence your health significantly the doctor may as k to stop taking them for 10 days in order to make a blood test possible.
o You have a severe skin disease. The usual areas where the skin tests are conducted include arms and back. If they are affected by other diseases, for example eczema or psoriasis this will not allow the allergist to see the results, thus the skin test will be of no use.
o High sensitiveness to suspected allergens. You may be sensitive to some allergens in such a way that even very small amounts of them may cause a severe allergic reaction, so it may be dangerous for your health.
Without professional tests you won’t be prescribed immunotherapy (a series of injections intended to increase your tolerance to allergens). That’s why because of any of the reasons you are unable to pass through the skin test you will be recommended a blood test (in vitro allergen-specific IgE antibody test).
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