Asthma Allergy Testing for Children
- Wednesday, August 26, 2009, 14:00
- Asthma
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- TURNER:
- And next up is Cheryl from Bothell, joining us here on the Ask the Doctor Mailbag. Hi Cheryl.
- CHERYL:
- Hi.
- TURNER:
- Welcome in. And what’s the issue you’d like to talk about?
- CHERYL:
- First let me just say I do have a five year old son who within the past year has been recently diagnosed as having asthma. My question is actually two part. The first part being, how effective is overall allergy testing and the second part being would it be recommended for a young child like that?
- TURNER:
- Okay. So it sounds like a couple of issues. Dr. Stempel?
- STEMPEL:
- Maybe you can tell me right now what type of medications is your son using?
- CHERYL:
- He’s on Intal. He takes that through a chamber four times a day. He uses Albuterol through a nebulizer pretty much as needed. And then it seems like every other month we end up on Prelone.
- STEMPEL:
- Okay. All right. First off, asthma in children who are age five are caused by several different things. They are caused when they get a common cold, so common respiratory viruses make asthma worse, exercise makes asthma worse, and a whole group of allergens. And I think what you’re asking is, is it worthwhile to allergy test your child now?
- CHERYL:
- Right.
- STEMPEL:
- Well, if you read through the new NIH guidelines, that’s the National Institute of Health guidelines, it basically says if you have persistent symptoms meaning that you’re on daily medications which your son is, that it’s appropriate to find out if your child is or is not allergic. So skin testing and what’s called either scratch or prick puncture testing is usually what’s recommended. It should be just done to a select group of allergens, maybe somewhere between 8 and maybe a dozen or 15. It’s very, very helpful in finding out if he’s allergic today. I think it’s appropriate at this time to go ahead and see if you can get a select group of well-done skin tests, and occasionally there’s a test that’s called a RAST test that some physicians would use, but once again, it should be to fairly select items like dust mite, cat, dog, and maybe a few pollens.
- CHERYL:
- Okay. Now, doing the skin testing, would that actually bring on an asthma attack?
- STEMPEL:
- No, if it’s done using one of the techniques that we described, essentially I’ve never seen that.
- CHERYL:
- Okay. Great.
- TURNER:
- Okay Cheryl?
- CHERYL:
- Yes, thank you so much.
- TURNER:
- You bet. Thanks for the questions.
- CHERYL:
- You’re welcome.
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