Ever since I moved to North Carolina from New York, I have had recurring problems with allergies. Recently, things got really bad where one weekend, out of nowhere, I was having great difficulty breathing. It was to the point where I almost thought I was going to have to ask my boyfriend to drive me to the hospital. After sitting in a steamy bathroom for about an hour, I managed to make it through the night, and I wound up making an appointment with an allergist the very next morning.

If you have never been to an allergist before, it can seem a little daunting at first. My recent visit to an allergist was my first ever. I knew that whatever it was that had caused me the breathing difficulties was perhaps due, no doubt, to something that I was allergic to in the air. The allergist that I happened to go to also specialized in asthma, so I took comfort in knowing that regardless, I would come out of there knowing what was wrong with me.

When I visited the allergist, the first thing they did was they asked me a bunch of health-related questions to get an idea of my history. Questions that were asked were related to any known food or otherwise-related allergies, where I came from (I.e. I had moved from New York), when I first noticed symptoms, what the symptoms were, etc. They then took me into a different room where I had to perform a Peak Flow test. This test consisted of taking a deep breath and then blowing as hard and as long as you can into a tube that is hooked up to a computer. On the computer screen are lines that go up and/or down to measure your flow of breath. The purpose of this test is to determine whether or not you are a candidate for asthma.

Following this, I met with the doctor and chatted with him for a while. He listened to my chest and could hear that, though I was feeling better, I was still wheezing uncontrollably. It was then determined that I was to be given a breathing treatment followed by a full “long series” skin test, followed by another Peak Flow test to see if the breathing treatment had made a difference in helping me breathe. The breathing treatment consisted of medicine that was forced out of a tube that I had to keep in my mouth at all times until it ran out. This took approximately ten minutes. Following this, a nurse came in with a tray that had approximately forty little test tube viles with toothpicks in them. I had to put both of my arms on the table with my palms facing upwards. The nurse then took a red marker and neatly created two long rows of dots on each of my forearms. Immediately following this, she pulled a toothpick out of each of the viles and lightly pricked my arm, matching a different toothpick to a different dot each time.

I was told that each of the viles contained different environmental agitators that are commonly known to affect people who have allergies. For example, my left forearm was pricked with mostly different species of trees and pollens while my right arm was pricked with different kinds of pets, molds and grasses. I then had to wait fifteen LONG minutes to see if there was any reaction...which there definitely was. Before a minute had passed, both of my arms were burning and broken out in hives- some bigger than others. The nurse came in after the fifteen minutes were up and took measurements of each of the hives and recorded them onto my chart. Then the doctor came in and we discussed the results. I was later sent home with three different types of inhalers as well as information on allergies and how to keep my living space clean to avoid future attacks.