Specializing in adult and childhood allergies, asthma, and immunologic disorders in Abilene and the Big Country Area.

Learn more about each of the allergy tests that Dr. Hall Offers

Dr. Ashley Hall is a board-certified pysician and trained to identify the factors that contribute to allergies and asthma. She will create a flexible treatment plan that works for you to help you live a life that isn’t controlled by your allergies. She is the only allergist in Abilene offering biologics for treatment of asthma, eczema and nasal polyps.

Important Information About Allergy Testing

Medications That May Interfere With Allergy Testing

Antihistamines: Prescription or over the counter antihistamines should not be used 5-7 days prior to scheduled skin testing.

These medicines include pills for “cold” sinus tablets, hay fever medications, or oral treatments for itchy skin. Some of the names of these drugs include Actifed, Allegra, Benadryl, Cetirizine, Claritin, Clarinex, Dimetapp, Dristan, Drixoral, Rondec Tynatan, Trinalin, Zyrtec, and many others.

Antihistamine eye drops include Elestat, Optivar, Pataday, Patanol, Zaditor, and some over the counter eye drops.

Antihistamine nasal sprays include Astelin, Astepro, Patanase, and Omnaris. These nasal sprays need to be stopped 2 days before skin testing.

Sleeping medicines that may contain antihistamines (Nytol, Tylenol PM, Advil PM, Etc.).

Stomach medicines that may contain antihistamines (Axid, Pepcid, Tagamet, and Zantac).

Tricyclic Antidepressants may block skin testing results, but you should NOT stop such medication on your own. Some of the names of these medications are: Amitriptyline Page 2 (Elavil), Doxepin (Sinequan), and Imipramine (Tofranil). Please make the doctor and nurse aware if you are taking any of these medications.

**If you have any questions about medication interference with testing, please call our office.

Skin Testing

Skin testing is the most accurate diagnostic test used by a trained allergist/immunologist. Allergy skin testing is a simple procedure that involves making tiny scratches with a small instrument that is similar to a plastic toothpick, on the skin of your forearms.

The skin is lightly scratched with a tiny amount of a common allergen. If you are allergic to that particular allergen, then a small mosquito bite-like bump will appear.

Using this testing, an allergist can determine your specific allergy profile and determine an effective and personalized treatment plan for the substances to which you are allergic.

Patch Testing

Patch testing is performed to diagnose contact allergies by testing 80 commercial allergens (North American 80 Panel). Paper patches with allergens underneath are applied to the back and left on for 48 hours. Test is read at 48, 72 and 96 hours. This type of test is very helpful to patients with rashes due to contact allergy to metals, fragrances, dye and other chemicals.

Allergy Shots

Also referred to as allergy injections or immunotherapy, allergy shots are in essence a series of injections to control allergy symptoms. The injections do not contain a medication to control allergies, but are instead, a vaccine.

Allergy shots act to desensitizes allergy patients to their specific allergens. They effectively decrease or ‘turn-off’ your body’s allergic reactions to the plant, tree, pet or mold allergens, but still allows your immune system to respond normally to other infectious agents.

By gradually increasing the dosage, your body develops a tolerance to those particular allergens and using allergy shots, your allergy symptoms can be decreased, minimized or even eliminated.

Penicillin Testing

Often patients believe they are allergic to penicillin and therefore believe they must use other broad-spectrum antibiotics. This can lead to increased drug costs as well as unnecessary use of more broad-spectrum antibiotics. Overuse of these broad-spectrum antibiotics can lead to antibiotic resistance.

Using developed testing, it has been demonstrated that approximately 85% of patients who believe themselves to be allergic to penicillin are negative upon testing which means they can safely take penicillin and its related drugs.

Penicillin testing involves a series of skin prick and intradermal testing using the penicillin reagents. If results of these tests is negative, we follow with an oral challenge to confirm that you are not allergic. This procedure is done in the office and takes approximately 2.5 hours to complete, including observation time.

Venom Immunotherapy

A highly effective program which can prevent future allergic reactions to insect stings. Venom Immunotherapy involves administering gradually increasing doses of venom to decrease a patient’s sensitivity to the venom. This treatment can reduce the patients risk of a experiencing a future allergic reaction to the risk level of the general population.

Local Anesthetic Skin Testing

This procedure can be performed if the patient has a history of previous reactions to a medication such as lidocaine. This procedure is done in the office and takes about 1.5 hours to complete.

Oral Food Challenges

A procedure where a person takes a particular food or medication by mouth in order under an allergist’s observation in order to assure that no allergic reaction occurs.