Yes, it is definitely worth having an allergy test to identify the triggers of your daughter’s hayfever. Not only can you then learn to avoid the triggers once they are known, but there are now also newer forms of treatment for certain triggers such as grass and house dust mite which aim for a permanent cure to desensitise the immune response against these triggers.
Some of my child patients also suffer from asthma and eczema, conditions which are well known to be associated with hay fever or allergic rhinitis. So finding out what triggers are causing flare-ups of their health problems is extremely useful not only to me as the ENT specialist but also to their skin and chest doctors too!
Allergy tests may be done as skin prick tests (see picture below) or running an allergy panel in the form of a blood test. I think that each test is equally sensitive but it is important to stop all anti-allergy medication such as antihistamines (e.g. telfast, clarityn, zyrtec) 48 hours before undergoing the allergy test, otherwise, the results may come back as falsely negative.
Skin prick tests usually test for an average of 8-10 triggers whilst the blood test is able to screen for up to 46 different potential triggers.
