
6. Receiving an allergy diagnosis.
It’s not a good idea to wait and see if your symptoms go away if you think you have allergies. Make an appointment with an allergy or immunology specialist if your symptoms last longer than a week or two and tend to come back and repeat. Doctors often diagnose allergies by an allergy skin test, which helps identify the allergens causing your symptoms. They perform this test by pricking your skin with an extract of a particular allergen. Then the specialist checks your skin’s reaction to that allergen shortly after (via Cleveland Clinic).
If you cannot have a skin test performed for any reason, doctors may obtain blood work (via Healthline). However, this test is not nearly as sensitive as a skin test. A blood test evaluates the number of antibodies produced by your immune system, and the higher the levels of specific antibodies will suggest a possible allergy to that allergen. They can also perform other types of allergy testing.