Allergies health centre

Overview & facts

Symptoms & types

Diagnosis & tests

Treatment & care

Living & managing

Finding help

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What are allergies?

Symptoms

Diagnosis

Treatment

Living and coping

Organisations

Recognising the source of allergies

Most people learn to recognise their allergy triggers; they also learn to avoid them in the name of allergy prevention.

An allergy specialist may be able to help you identify your triggers. Several different types of allergy tests are used to identify triggers.

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Skin testing is the most widely used and the most helpful. There are several different methods, but all involve exposing the skin to small amounts of various substances and observing the reactions over time.
Blood tests (RAST) generally identify IgE antibodies to specific antigens.
Other tests involve eliminating certain allergens from your environment and then re-introducing them to see if a reaction occurs.

People with a history of serious or anaphylactic reactions may be prescribed an auto-injector. This contains a pre-measured dose of adrenaline. You carry this with you and inject yourself with medication immediately if you are exposed to a substance that causes you to have a severe allergic reaction.

There is some evidence that breast-fed infants are less likely to have allergies than bottle-fed infants.