24 January 2010 | By: Unknown

Allergy Testing - and a concern

Pumpkin had his allergy testing done on Thursday (21 Jan).
Pumpkin's was done to his back
After it was done the nurse/medical assistant who did it said "that's odd" "the control didn't really make a mark" and she "had to redo it" so she does a second control on his shoulder, which does in fact work. With doing this, she first measured the marks and notes on the sheet that there is zero reaction, and proceeds with the second control. She does not alter the results she marked down. I don't believe she even explained to the allergist that a new control was needed and we forgot to ask. When the allergist came in, he said either the allergies are outgrown, or they're sensitivities and he will outgrow them, or the test wasn't as accurate (though he compared it to pregnancy test, where 99% of the time it is accurate). What should I do?

The allergist did explain that Pumpkin is too young to show environmental allergies on a skin test, but he did test for dog, cat, and dust mites as he had a reaction to my sister-in-law's dog over New Year's. He prescribed an albuterol inhaler and mask if Pumpkin should have more symptoms and suggested we get no new pets (we explained that we have none and that our housing doesn't allow cats and dogs).

Side note: basically all of Hubby's family has a dog. Pumpkin had cold symptoms (i.e. sneezing and some coughing), some labored breathing (it was worse at night and we had him sleep in his bouncy seat, he was so miserable), and some lingering wheezing for days (actually, lasted over a week) after his exposure; his immediate reaction was rashes where the dog licked him. No one else had a cold, so we're pretty sure he didn't either. The allergist was surprised Pumpkin wasn't given an inhaler already.

1 comments:

Rachael said...

I hope you get some answers.