My Experience

I had been having allergies for about 2 years and was tired of all the sneezing and coughing. I finally wanted to know what I was allergic to so I could figure out what to do. I received a packet of information from the doctor’s office before I went in. There were instructions about what types of allergy and asthma medication I should stop taking a day or a few days before getting the tests. They also informed me that the entire testing would take about two hours, so I had to clear my schedule for that morning.

I ended up being in the doctor’s office about 1.5 hours. The pricking part of the procedure only lasted for about 10 minutes, but giving all my background health and allergy information, waiting to see the reactions, reading the results, and discussing them with the doctor took up the rest of the time.

When I first came into the doctor’s office a nurse took my height, weight, and blood pressure. Then she sat with me for about 15 minutes, asking lots of questions about my symptoms, general health, and family health history and filling out forms with my answers. Then she gave me a paper hospital shirt (like a gown, only shorter) with an open back and told me to take off my shirt and put it on. She said I could leave my bra on if it snapped in the back.

The nurse came back with a rack full of tiny test tubes with a small syringe sticking out of each one. She had me lie down on my stomach and she pricked my back 36 times – one with each syringe. Then she told me to stay there for 10 minutes and not to itch my back. I closed my eyes and rested. My back started itching almost immediately but I resisted scratching. When the nurse came back she took a ruler and measured the bumps that I guess must have formed where she had injected the allergens. She wrote down the results on a form. She said I was definitely allergic to cats and grass because I had a strong reaction to those, and that she wouldn’t have to retest those two things. But she said now she would have to test on my arms all the ones I initially didn’t react too strongly to. She came back with another rack of test tubes and syringes and pricked me on the arms with the 34 allergens that I hadn’t responded to on my back.

The pricks in the arm hurt more than the ones in the back, and some hurt more than others. I watched as she pricked and injected little bubbles of liquid under my skin in lines going down my arms (18 on one arm and 16 on the other). Sometimes there was a little dot of blood where the needle went in, and sometimes there wasn’t.

When she was done, she told me to wait another ten minutes. This time I asked for a magazine and she got one for me. My left arm started itching almost immediately and it was very hard not to scratch. I saw some of the bubbles expanding and the area around them turning red.

When the nurse returned, she brought another nurse with her, and as she measured the dots with a ruler, she called out the results to the other nurse to record. I asked what she was finding and she said I was allergic to some spring pollens and a little bit to dust and dogs. When I asked what she was recording she said the height of each bump and the size of the red area around them. When she was done she left and I put my shirt back on. The doctor came in and discussed the results with me, and we discussed my options for dealing with the results.

I had no pain or discomfort after the procedure, but I still had red dots, a few of them swollen, running down both my arms.