What is Asthma?
Asthma is a chronic disease that inflames the airways, making it difficult to breathe. When untreated or improperly treated, asthma can cause permanent changes to the airways. This fact has only recently begun to be recognized and reflects the importance of properly managing asthma. The typical symptoms of asthma are:
Coughing
Shortness of breath
Wheezing (a sound similar to air slowly being let out of a balloon)
Chest tightness.
With children or infants, however, other symptoms may indicate they have asthma. These include:
Rapid or noisy breathing
Chest congestion or grunting when taking a bottle or breast- feeding
Complaints that their chests “hurt” or “feel funny.”
Tiredness, lethargy, irritability, and not wanting to play.
Occasionally, individuals with asthma may not wheeze, but they will have poor air exchange and have trouble breathing.
What is Immunotherapy (Allergy Shots)?
Immunotherapy is a treatment used to relieve allergy symptoms of hay fever or allergic asthma by administering injections of substances such as pollens, mold spores, dust mites, animal dander, or insects to which an individual has been found to be allergic by skin testing. The mechanisms of its effect are the subject of ongoing research. However, immunotherapy initiates processes that seem to "turn off' the abnormal immune reaction that we term "allergy".
When an allergic person is exposed to an allergenic substance (such as cat dander), he or she may develop symptoms of sneezing, runny nose, nasal congestion, watery eyes, chest tightness or wheezing. Various cells that line the nose and the airways actually release chemicals termed mediators that cause these symptoms. An inflammatory reaction accompanies this process and leads to persistent symptoms. Immunotherapy probably works to interfere with the actions of these cells and to thereby diminish the effects of the chemical mediators that cause allergic symptoms.
Allergy Shots are used to decrease your sensitivity to allergy-causing substances so that exposure to the offending allergens (pollens, dust, molds, etc.) will result in fewer symptoms. This does not mean that allergy shots are a substitute for avoidance of known allergens which is the treatment of choice.
What is Allergy Testing?
If you are allergic, you are reacting to a particular substance. Any substance that can trigger an allergic reaction is called an allergen. To determine which specific substances are triggering your allergies, your allergist/immunologist will safely and effectively test your skin, or sometimes your blood, using tiny amounts of commonly troublesome allergens.
Allergy tests are designed to gather the most specific information possible so your doctor can determine what you are allergic to and provide the best treatment.
The Asthma Center
Specially designed for children between the ages of 4 and 18 THE ASTHMA CENTER at Coastal Allergy & Asthma is the regions only comprehensive diagnostic, treatment, and asthma education program.
AeroAllergy Research Labs
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Coastal Allergy & Asthma works together with our research company AeroAllergy Research to bring various allergy and asthma studies to our area. Studies are a great way to see if a patient's allergies or asthma will respond to alternative medicines and treatment options.