From a runny nose to itchy eyes to a swollen throat, both mild and severe allergies can negatively impact your daily life. Fortunately, there are ways to pinpoint your triggers and decrease your allergic response.
At Ear, Nose & Throat of New Jersey, our experienced providers have helped countless patients manage their allergies for a better quality of life. If you want to know more about how our practice can treat your symptoms, contact us at 732-914-2233.
Comprehensive Allergy Testing
Diagnosing your specific allergies is a crucial step in creating your treatment plan. Comprehensive allergy testing allows us to test for common irritants like pollen, insect venom, or pet dander. Before your allergy test, you should stop using corticosteroids since this can change your results.
What is a Scratch Test?
A scratch test, sometimes called a skin prick test, is one of the most common ways to diagnose allergies. This can test your sensitivity for 40 common allergens. During your scratch test, our providers will mark areas of the back to indicate the presence of allergens. Then, we’ll gently prick the sites and apply a substance containing the allergen to the skin.
A response to any of the allergens, including swelling, redness, itching, and blistering, will help your provider correctly diagnose triggers. You can then avoid these allergens to prevent a reaction in the future.
Side Effects of Skin Allergy Testing
Skin allergy testing typically has manageable side effects, like a small area of contact dermatitis. In some cases, you might experience a mild version of systemic reactions. However, in rare instances, patients might experience larger systemic reactions such as itching, wheezing, or swelling of the face and body. In these cases, our providers will promptly administer treatment.
Allergy Treatment with Immunotherapy Shots
Immunotherapy could be a great option if you have persistent allergies that still get in the way of your daily activities despite using other treatments. Immunotherapy works by administering small doses of an allergen to increase tolerance. Over time, your immune system will recognize the allergen without triggering a reaction.
Immunotherapy can be administered through shots injected into your arm once a week. These injections start with minute quantities of the allergen and are gradually increased. You’ll typically build a tolerance to the allergen over a month or two.
Once you can tolerate limited exposure without developing symptoms, we’ll start administering maintenance doses with decreasing frequency. Generally, this dose is administered every two weeks for about six months.
The period between injections can then be increased to about a month. Maintenance doses could be required for up to five years to maintain partial immunity to allergens. For patients with severe or potentially fatal allergies, immunotherapy can be life-changing.
Sublingual Immunotherapy With Allergy Drops
Many of our patients dread the idea of dealing with needles on a regular basis. If you’re in this camp, we may recommend sublingual immunotherapy using allergy drops. This method works similarly to immunotherapy with shots. However, you’ll place the medication under your tongue instead of getting injections. Most allergy drops need to be taken every few days for several years to reduce your symptoms significantly.
Schedule Your Toms River Allergy Treatment Appointment
Whether you need help diagnosing your triggers or you’re tired of ineffective treatments that do little for your symptoms, the specialists at Ear, Nose & Throat of New Jersey are here to help. Book an appointment to discuss your allergy testing and treatment options at our Toms River, New Jersey practice by calling 732-914-2233.
