Dr. Ania may perform skin prick testing at your appointment where indicated.
Skin prick tests are used to help with diagnosis and follow up of immediate food allergies. Not all food reactions require skin prick testing.
Skin prick tests feel and look about the same as mosquito bites – and they itch just as much! It takes about 5 minutes to do a skin prick test and the results are available within 15 min.
Skin prick test is usually done on a child’s back to prevent scratching.
Most food allergy occurs to only a few foods where commercial extracts are available for skin prick testing. This includes milk, egg, soy, peanuts, tree nuts and sesame.
If you are concerned that your child has food reactions to other foods, please bring a small (eg 20 cent size) portion of each food in question for direct skin prick testing. These can include fruit (raw), vegetables (raw), fish (fresh and cooked) and seafood (raw and cooked).
These need to be packed separately to avoid cross contamination.
Please do not give your child antihistamine for 5 days before their appointment as this will interfere with skin prick test results.
This includes Zyrtec, Claratyne, Aerius, Phenergan, Polarmine, Vallergan, Demazin and Dimetapp.
All other medications should be continued e.g. asthma medications and nasal sprays.
Please do not apply moisturisers or creams to your child’s back on the day of their appointment (this is where the skin prick test will be performed). You can continue using creams on other parts of the body if required.