An allergy test is an identification method performed by a medical practitioner or an allergy specialist to identify whether your body has an allergic reaction to a known substance. This type of identification method can be in the form of a blood test, a skin test or an elimination diet. Allergies occur when your body’s natural defence mechanism overreacts to something in your surroundings. Normally these materials are harmless but it causes some type of harm to very few peoples when their body gets exposed to these substances. These types of reactions lead to certain symptoms like a runny nose, sneezing, blocked sinuses, itchy, watery eyes etc.
Types of Allergy tests
The substance which causes these allergies are known as allergens. The allergens may fall under three categories mainly inhaled allergens, ingested allergens and contact allergens. An allergy test may involve either a skin test or a blood test.
Skin tests
The Skin tests are used to identify numerous potential allergens which include airborne, food-related and contact allergens. Scratch, intradermal and patch tests are the three types of skin tests. In the case of scratch test, the allergen is placed in liquid, after that, it is placed on a section of your skin with a special tool that lightly punctures the allergen into the skin’s surface. If there are localized redness, swelling, elevation or itchiness of the skin over the test site, that specific allergen may cause allergy. For the intradermal skin test, it requires injecting a tiny amount of allergen into the dermis layer of your skin. If any of the above-mentioned difficulties may occur, the allergen can be identified. A patch test is another type of skin test and this involves using adhesive patches loaded with suspected allergens and placing these patches on your skin and reviewed at 48 or 72 hours after application.
Blood tests
This is performed to identify the presence of antibodies that fight specific allergens. It is also called ImmunoCAP which is very successful in detecting IgE antibodies to major allergens. Another method is the elimination diet that helps you to identify which foods are causing you to have an allergic reaction.
If we fail to identify the cause of allergy at the proper time it may even lead to death. There are so many clinics in Dubai where the experts provide proper diagnosis and effective solutions. They identify the cause of your allergy and then work with you to find the most suitable allergy treatment plan in Dubai for your needs.
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