Allergy Treatment Plan Is Created Specifically For You

There are many ways to manage your allergic reactions so that you can lead a healthy life.

Whether you have reactions from inhalation or ingestion and experience symptoms like sneezing, coughing, wheezing, itchy rashes, or stomach pains, doctors can create a treatment procedure that gets you back to good health!

Allergy treatment options

Doctors use three things to determine a patient’s allergy treatment plan. These include the patient’s medical history, the results of allergy testing that identifies the causes, and the severity of the symptoms.

Doctors can also treat your allergies in many ways. One treatment method involves avoiding the allergen altogether, making lifestyle changes, and avoiding triggers. You can also take over-the-counter or prescription medication as an option for managing the symptoms. You might also receive immunotherapy, or allergens given as shots or placed beneath the tongue.

Skin testing for allergies

Before all of this though, doctors must identify the allergens causing the reaction. One of the most common methods that allergists use is a skin test. A skin test shows the doctor what is provoking your allergic response. This test can also diagnose the allergens that will cause an immediate response after exposure. Those allergens that do not prompt a reaction for hours afterward are identified with other methods of testing.

Treatment & care plans

It is important to treat allergy symptoms, because they can lead to more serious problems like ear or sinus infections. There are many over-the-counter and prescription medications that will help relieve those pesky allergy symptoms as well as those more serious reactions.

You have many options for allergy medication. They include:

Nasal corticosteroids. These nose sprays reduce nasal allergies and eliminate the stuffy/runny/itchy nose feeling.

Antihistamines. This medicine blocks histamine, a trigger of allergic swelling. It calms and eases itching, runny noses, and hives caused by seasonal or indoor allergies.

Corticosteroid creams or ointments. Itchy rashes can be relieved and stopped from spreading with a corticosteroid topical cream.

Decongestants. These reduce stuffiness and swelling in your nose.

Epinephrine. This is the most important medication for the life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. This usually follows as a reaction from food, stinging insects, drugs, medicines, or latex. The medication is in a self-injectable device you inject as a shot within minutes of the first sign of a severe reaction.

Respiratory treatment

Asthma is a lung and breathing condition that requires treatment. Arkansas Allergy & Asthma Clinic has the training and experience to deal with asthma and other lung and breathing issues. Professionals at the Clinic work hard to eliminate symptoms caused by all types of asthma during the therapy process.

Immunotherapy treatment

In an effort to eliminate serious allergy symptoms, our patients can select our immunotherapy treatments to increase their resistance to problematic allergens. Immunotherapy is a popular allergy treatment patients can receive as allergy shots or sublingual immunotherapy.

Allergy shots are injections of allergens given in an increasing dose over time so that the patient becomes progressively less sensitive to that particular allergen. This type of immunotherapy has worked best for those with allergies to pets, pollen, bees, mold, and dust.

Sublingual immunotherapy is a method of treating certain allergies without the process of injection. A small dose of an allergen is placed under the tongue to give exposure to improve tolerance to the allergen.

Both of these treatments have shown to reduce symptoms. The immunotherapy process requires weekly visits that become monthly shots as your body responds to the allergy treatment plan. Many patients notice an abrupt decrease in their serious allergy symptoms while undergoing the immunotherapy treatment process.

Avoiding your allergens

The best way to treat allergies is to prevent exposure to them — if you can! If you can limit your exposure to the specific allergen as much as possible, then you limit your need for allergy medication. This can mean you remove the allergen from your home or lifestyle. For example, you can reduce your symptoms to dust mites by keeping your home as clean as possible, changing sheets and pillowcases often, cleaning all indoor air supply vents, and washing your nose with a nasal saline rinse daily. If you have seasonal allergies, then consider exercising indoors, not hanging laundry outside to dry, and reducing outdoor time.

Contact

Arkansas Allergy & Asthma Clinic is known in Little Rock and Conway, Arkansas for cutting-edge treatments for seasonal and chronic allergic conditions. With in-house immunotherapy and custom treatments for both pediatric and adult patients, the Clinic offers specialized and comprehensive care so patients leave offices happy and healthy.

Contact us at 501-227-5210 and request an appointment with an allergist today so that you can get back to optimal health!