An allergist is also called an immunologist and this may be a more appropriate term if they treat more than just allergies. After getting a medical degree and medical training, a doctor who wants to be an immunologist goes on to study for another few years.

What does an allergist/immunologist do?

Allergists are trained to prevent, diagnose, and manage allergies. This includes trying to discover what exactly you’re allergic to, and this isn’t always easy.

Dee, copyright Marijke Durning

Sometimes, the cause of your allergies can be figured out through trial-and-error – such as if you’re allergic to dogs, pollen, or a specific food. Other times, it’s not so easy. So, the first thing an allergist will do is a very thorough medical history.

Some of the questions may seem a little “out there,” but there are reasons for them all. After the medical history, the allergist must decide what – if any – type of testing to do.

Elimination

Elimination testing is done by removing certain things that could be causing your allergies to see if that makes a difference. This can be done one of two ways. You can remove 1 thing at a time for a set amount of time, but never more than 1. What you’re looking for is a difference in how you feel. If you remove more than 1 thing, you won’t know which item was the offending one.

Or, as may be done with food, you remove everything from your diet except the bare minimum. You then start introducing food – one at a time for a set period of time – to see what, if anything, causes you to react.

Skin Testing

Skin testing is the type that involves your doctor making little pin pricks, usually on your arm, and putting a bit of different allergens just under the skin on the arm to see if they react. Then, you wait. Usually if you’re going to react, it’s within less than half an hour.

Skin allergy testing should be done with supervision, in a medical office or facility, just in case your reaction to an allergen is very severe.

Treatment

An allergist will decide, with you, what the best course of treatment is. For some, it’s simply avoiding the allergen, but there are methods that may help for others, such as “allergy shots.” Small, dilute amounts of the allergen are given by injection in the hopes of sensitizing your body so it doesn’t react any more.

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Images: Marijke Durning, iStock, Stock.xchng

Post from: Blisstree

A is also for… Allergist

Sinus Wash

1 dropper Black Walnut, alcohol free

1 dropper Pau’ De Arc, alcohol free

A couple drops Tea Tree Oil

1 tsp. salt

8 oz. warm to hot water

Suck it up with a bulb syringe and shoot it up one nostril with your head tilted back, let it drain out of your mouth. Do the same on alternating sides until you’ve used the whole 8 oz.

Sinus Wash Testimonial

If you have allergies you will definitely want to try this. Well, actually you won’t want to because it sounds totally kookie and you’ll wonder if you might actually drown, but you should try it because it works.

Let me just tell you about my “misery factor” as my allergist called it. Last year I had an MRI and wore a heart monitor for 30 days due to dizziness or vertigo.

I would literally lie down and the room would spin. I would sort of tip in one direction while carrying the baby around, praying I wouldn’t actually fall. I felt like I couldn’t hear properly, like I was at the other end of a tunnel.

My internist wanted to make sure I wasn’t on the verge of a heart attack. The ear, nose and throat guy wanted to make sure I wasn’t experiencing some sort of ear problem, perhaps an infection that was affecting my sense of balance. I was fine on both counts. They sent me to the allergist.

So off to the allergist I went. Thinking hey, this is going to be great. Imagine my disbelief when he told me his three-year-plan. First, he wanted to run a bunch of tests to see what exactly I was allergic to. Then he wanted to give me two shots a week for three years, with an office copay for each of those shots.

Then I will be cured and never had to worry about allergies again? I asked.

Well, we don’t know that. You should get some relief. You might have to keep taking allergy medication. Everyone responds differently, he informed me.

Relief? You want me to come in here twice a week and get a shot, at $30 a week for three years and I won’t even be cured? I think it would be easier and cheaper to just move!

For me that was a non-plan. Or a way to bilk money out of my pocket for little to nothing. Having just spent a ton of money to make sure that I wasn’t having a heart attack or going deaf there was no freaking way I was into his three-year-plan.

I was in the health food store and asked the guy what he recommended for allergies. He gave me a recipe for a sinus wash, with instructions to shoot 8 oz. of this mixture up my nose on a daily basis.

Am I going to drown? I asked. He looked at me like I was either extremely intelligent or quite stupid, I couldn’t really tell.

Who has the crazier plan, I thought, the allergist or the health nut?

Well, at least the health nut’s plan was only going to cost me $20 every couple of months.

So, for about 6-8 months I’ve been using my sinus wash every day in the shower and it has been a miracle find. It’s almost a cure to my whole allergy problem. I still take a Zertec or a Benedryl for itchy eyes, but my dizziness and vertigo is entirely gone. Whenever I’m particularly congested and feel pressure in my head between my eyes or behind my ears I just do a sinus wash and I’m clear again.

Allergy medications try to stop the manufacture of phlegm, but you MUST get the phlegm out of your head with the sinus wash. For me, I’d been taking the medications for so long they had stopped working. The only effective treatment has been the sinus wash.

Dr. Oz, on Oprah, showed a nose bidet. I don’t have one of those and I’m not running out to buy one. I use a nose sucker, or bulb syringe – you know the kind you suck the snot out of a baby’s nostril’s with?

If you have allergies or sinusitis and finally you’re sick of it. You have to try this sinus wash.

Post from: Blisstree

Sinus Wash Miracle Cure