Drug allergy in children occurs as a result of the immune system’s perception of a drug as a foreign and harmful substance and its reaction to protect the body against this drug. Diagnosis of drug allergy is very important so that the disease does not worsen and does not cause other allergic diseases. We wrote this article to inform you about how a drug allergy diagnosis is made.
How Should Drug Allergy Be Diagnosed?
In order to make a definitive and complete diagnosis of drug allergy, a detailed examination and tests required for diagnosis are indispensable. When drug allergy is misdiagnosed by an inexperienced doctor, this causes the patient to use unnecessary or very expensive drugs.
A physical examination by your allergist comes first for diagnosis. Your doctor will listen to your child’s symptoms, answer your questions, make some inferences based on the symptoms, and then examine the conditions such as swelling and redness on the body during the physical examination. These will be good diagnostic clues if your doctor observes them well.
Skin Prick Test for Diagnosing Drug Allergy
The skin prick test applied in the diagnosis of drug allergy helps to find the drug to which you are allergic. In order for this test to give accurate results, it must be performed by an experienced allergist or allergy nurse, because observing and interpreting the result is as important as doing the test.
In the skin prick test, a concentrated extract of the drugs your child is suspected of being allergic to is applied as drops to the arm or back. Then, with the help of a sharp object, the drops are allowed to penetrate the skin. If the droplets are kept on your child’s body for a while and the areas where the drops are applied become reddened, this indicates an allergy.
Although the skin prick test varies according to the experience of the doctor, it usually gives the most accurate result. Because the body’s direct reaction to the allergen is seen.
Blood Allergy Test in the Diagnosis of Drug Allergy
Your allergist may consider it appropriate to take a blood test to identify drugs that cause allergic symptoms in the child. However, blood allergy tests are applied for a very limited number of drugs, and the result of the test varies according to the quality of the devices used to examine the blood.
Therefore, the most reliable method in diagnosis is usually skin prick tests.