About
Our team of medical providers have dedicated their lives to treating allergic and immunologic conditions. When you become a patient of Northern Allergy, you become apart of our family. Accurate testing and identification of allergic triggers is just the beginning of our care plan individualized to fit your specific and unique needs.
What we Treat:
ENVIRONMENTAL ALLERGIES
Pets, farm animals, pests, grasses, weeds, trees and molds
Triggers for asthma, eczema, eye and nasal symptoms are referred to as “Environmental” allergies. This may come from dander from various pets, cats, dogs, gerbils, rabbits, guinea pigs, horses, etc. as well as from a long list of various grasses, weeds, trees and molds. Pests such as cockroaches and mice also can contribute to allergy symptoms. Testing can be performed right in our office and results are provided in real time before you leave your appointment.
FOOD ALLERGIES
Nuts, fish/shellfish, fruits, vegetables, dairy, glutens, animal proteins, spices and seasonings
Food allergies affect as many as 1 in 10 people and most do not even know it. Symptoms can range from hives, itchy skin or eczema flares, scratchy or tingly throat and tongue, upset stomach with bloating, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation, GERD all the way to severe reactions such as anaphylaxis. Testing can be performed to evaluate various fruits, vegetables, nuts, fish and shellfish, dairy, meat proteins such as beef, chicken and pork, gluten and even seasonings and spices.
MEDICATION ALLERGIES
Improper labeling of medication allergies can lead to increased length of hospital stays, increased health care costs, and exposure to harsher medications with greater potential for side effects. We can evaluate medications for true allergic response from the safety of our office under direct supervision of our medical team.
How we Treat You:
Our treatment plans include but are not limited to: Appropriate inhaler therapies, evaluation of pulmonary function, environmental allergy testing and immune system evaluation, allergy shots (immunotherapy), allergen exposure reduction, and even smoking cessation. Depending on your individualized care plan, your doctors will sit down with you and explain the various treatment options you qualify for in more detail.
Types of Allergies Explained:
Gerd or Acid Reflux: Gastroesophageal reflux disease occurs when stomach acid flows back into the tube (esophagus) connecting the mouth and stomach. This backwash of acid can irritate the lining of the esophagus.
More than 50 million Americans experience a wide variety of allergies each year. According to research, allergies are the 6th leading cause of illness in the United States in general. Suffice to say that Americans should be working hard with their doctors to discover the cause of their allergies to help put their symptoms and illnesses to rest.
Food Allergies:
When we think of food allergies historically, the idea of a child having a severe peanut allergy in school or someone getting sick from some shellfish may come to mind. But food allergies are wildly more complex and create a wide variety of symptoms, disorders, and health problems.
Food allergies can cause mild to severe or even life-threatening reactions. But many food allergies can also cause chronic pain and discomfort, and can go undiscovered for years. In recent times, more research has shown how allergies to dairy, gluten, and soy, among other specific food items contribute to chronic problems like leaky gut or IBS. Though not always as popular in our collective conscience about food allergies, cutting edge research shows how our nutrition can have a great impact on our overall health and learning to eat or not eat specific food items can help prevent chronic or life-threatening allergic reactions. Through diet modifications such as elimination diets and the Low-FODMAP diet, small changes to your nutrition and lifestyle could make all the difference in your allergy symptoms and discomforts.
In addition to generalized allergy symptoms, some of the disorders associated with food allergies aforementioned include: GERD (acid reflux), chronic bloating and cramping, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, Eosinophilic Gastritis, Colitis, IBS, and Leaky Gut Syndrome. After reading some of the descriptions of these disorders, you may feel as though you recognize, relate to, and experience some or many of these symptoms. We are here to help you get the proper diagnoses and treatment you need for your individual body and its needs.
Food Allergy Disorders explained in more detail:
Chronic Bloating or cramping: An inappropriate immune response to something the body perceives to be potentially dangerous can lead to a wide variety of symptoms such as chronic bloating and cramping, which makes for extreme discomfort on a daily basis.
Eosinophilic esophagitis: a chronic immune system disease where a particular type of white blood cell builds up in the lining of the esophagus. This buildup of white blood cells is a reaction to foods, allergens, or reflux, which can injure the esophageal tissue. This damaged tissue can lead to difficulty swallowing or cause food to get stuck when swallowing.
Eosinophilic gastritis: similar to the disorder above in that it is a rare disease in which a type of white blood cell causes injury and inflammation to the stomach. This often causes unexplained and chronic nausea and vomiting.
Colitis: a chronic digestive disease characterized by inflammation of the inner lining of the colon. This can lead to a plethora of more serious problems such as infection, loss of blood supply to the colon, and even Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
IBS: Irritable bowel syndrome affects the large intestine specifically. Symptoms include cramping, abdominal pain, bloating, gas, and diarrhea or constipation, or both. This is a chronic condition that needs to be managed in the long term.
Leaky Gut Syndrome: this can occur when junctions in the gut which control the passage of molecules into the small intestine are not working properly, allowing improper substances to leak into the bloodstream.
Medication Allergies:
After taking a specific medication for some other unrelated symptoms you are experiencing, you may encounter typical to severe allergy symptoms such as hives, rashes, or even difficulty breathing. It is important to be properly diagnosed with your medication allergies, as this may have been done for you in the past but was not done accurately, resulting in you continuing to feel symptoms of being improperly treated for other facets of your healthcare plan. In our facility, we will help you get the diagnosis you need and stop your uncomfortable to dangerous symptoms in their tracks.
Medication Allergies explained in more detail:
Most Common Drug Allergies are to:
- Penicillin and other related antibiotics
- Chemotherapy drugs
- Anticonvulsants
- Aspirin, ibuprofen and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs
- Antibiotics which contain sulfonamides
In order to get you diagnosed with the proper drug allergies, your doctors will personally meet with you to develop a timeline and history to decipher when and which drugs caused you to have allergic reactions.
Skin tests and drug challenges might be used to help you decipher the drug in question. Diagnosis and avoidance of triggers will come next in the proces. You will learn more when you sit down with your doctor to develop a future treatment plan.
Asthma: a chronic condition that impacts the airways in our lungs. Asthma can cause the airways in our lungs to become tightened and even narrowed dangerously at times. These constrictions can make it extremely difficult to breathe and can cause what are known as asthma attacks- periods in which the airway restriction can cause wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, dizziness, and shortness of breath. Combined with other factors, asthma can be very dangerous. Many people live not knowing that they have asthma. If you have had episodic periods of coughing or wheezing that seem unexplained, it would be advisable for you to at the very least be checked out by our doctors to know if you have asthma to some degree.
Wrap Up:
After perusing our website, we hope that you walk away with more knowledge of some of the possible disorders as well as treatments for symptoms you may be experiencing. We hope that you know our your medical providers are extremely qualified in their field and are highly rated for their bedside manner and demeanor. We want you as a future patient to know that you have the best team working together to create an individualized care plan that is right for you- one that will take your opinion into account as well. Your medical providers will work closely with our entire team on your healthcare plan to make sure you are receiving the best care for your allergy or asthma symptoms in the hopes that we can get you back on the road to hope, health, and vitality that you deserve to walk. We will be excited to see you when you first arrive! Please call and make an appointment through our front desk to get started on your life-altering journey today!
Sincerely,
The Northern Allergy and Asthma Family