Allergy Skin Tests: All You Need to Know

1. Allergy testing is a procedure carried out by a trained allergy specialist to check if your body shows an allergic response to a specific known substance.
2. An allergy exists when the body’s immune system shows an unexpected reaction to something in the environment.
3. Allergies can prove to be minor inconveniences to potentially life-threatening, which makes it important to know what substances you are allergic to.
4. The allergens can be quite common and may seem quite harmless, such as pollen which causes symptoms such as a running nose, sneezing, itchy and watery sinuses, along blocked sinuses.
5. Allergy skin tests can be done on the skin, the blood, or an elimination diet.

Let’s look at allergy skin tests in detail:

What Are Allergy Skin Tests?

1. Skin tests for allergy are quite common and are used to identify several allergens.
2. It can help test for airborne, contact, and food-borne allergens by checking for changes and reactions in skin cells.
3. There are three types of allergy skin tests, and an allergy specialist is likely to try all of them to get a proper look at the body’s reactions to allergens.

Let’s look at all of them in turn:

Scratch Test

1. A doctor is likely to start allergy skin tests with a scratch test.
2. The test uses an allergen placed in a liquid that is spread onto the skin using a tool that also punctures the skin slightly to let the allergen move inside.
3. The exposure is followed by thorough monitoring to see how the skin reacts.
4. An allergy is deduced if there is localized redness, swelling, itchiness, and elevation on the exposed part of the skin.