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Avoidance works for a young allergy sufferer

My daughter was diagnosed with asthma when she was about 10 years old. We put her on an inhaler, Claritin® and a nasal steroid spray. She relied on the inhaler daily; however, the other medications didn’t seem to have a great deal of effect on her constant stuffiness, and she was always tired.

We took her to an ENT, who recommended her tonsils and adenoids be removed to help her breathing. We had the procedures done and there was some relief, but she continued to feel miserable.

Both of her doctors indicated that she had allergies. She had never been tested, so we had no idea what she might be allergic to. We heard about the ImmunoCAP® Allergy blood test and had it done. The test confirmed that my daughter was allergic, and we immediately knew what she was sensitive to: dog, cat, mold, dust mites, grass, ragweed and a particular tree pollen.

We were told that helping my daughter avoid these triggers was the first step to relief. We removed the stuffed animals and curtains from her room, put dust mite covers on her bedding, moved the dehumidifier in the basement directly under her room and kept the doors and windows shut when mowing the lawn. We were also fortunate enough to be able to install an air conditioning unit with a good filter. While we do not have a cat, we do have a dog that we’ve kept in the house but banned from my daughter’s room. The dog sleeps in rooms that my daughter can easily avoid.

Since doing these simple measures, my daughter has finally found relief. She hasn’t needed the inhaler on any kind of a routine basis for a few years, and she stopped taking the Claritin and nasal steroids almost immediately after we started the allergy avoidance measures. If she is planning to visit a home with a cat, she takes an over-the-counter antihistamine as a precaution.

The blood test was simple and gave us the information we needed. Our only regret is that we didn’t have the test done sooner. It would have spared my daughter a lot of misery.

Claritin is a registered trademark of Schering-Plough.

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