How are allergies diagnosed?
When you think of diagnosing your allergies, first and foremost you must ascertain or at least know whether you really have any allergies. This is easier said than done, since many a times, your allergies may have symptoms similar to those of common cold, although this depends on the type of your allergy.
Generally speaking, when you have a cold you fell feverish, have cough, post nasal drip including foul odor and a bad taste. Also there could be yellow or green mucus coming from throat or nose, painful throat, severe headache. And the infection may be gone in maximum 7 to 10 days.
But with allergies, the symptoms may be sneezing, itchy throat, nose, ears and eyes, flowing mucus from throat and nose, runny nose, and nasal congestion. Then there are added conditions also in case of allergies like rhinitis, asthma and food allergies. Many individuals have to bear them every season, which means that in summer they may ride on high spirits, but come winter or perhaps spring when their immune system begins to play a trick on them, making them vulnerable to certain allergies.
You can now judge for yourself about your condition basing your supposition on the symptoms mentioned above for both cold and allergies, precisely more if your illness seems to be continuing for more than two weeks or have been switching on and off for more than that.
What we can ask next is simply, how do we find out the typical nature of our allergies, once we are confirmed about the fact that we do have allergies?
The simplest thing that you can do is to visit an allergist and get your allergies diagnosed by him through an allergy test. In fact, there will not be just a single test, but a stream of tests.
There are varied methods of allergy tests to determine your allergy but progressive method is the most popular and effective one.
Here the doctor would arrange a number of vials, where each of them would contain a particular allergen. There are indoor allergy vials and outdoor allergy vials. Cockroaches, feathers, pet hair, indoor mold and dust are indoor vials. Outdoor mold, pollen, plants, weeds, grass and trees are outdoor vials.
The technique is least complicated. Either the assistant or the doctor would take each vial and inject a little quantity of serum from the vial into the person, beginning with the smallest possible quantity. If the patient does not show any reaction from the vials then the doctor slowly puts in more dosage. If a reaction takes place, then that vial is noted at the dosage that instigated the reaction. This system goes on until the maximum amount is injected for each vial or a reaction takes place from any one of the vials. Any of the two may occur first.
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