The study found that for the majority of those patients, allergy shots helped control or reduce their asthma symptoms, improve their lung function and decrease their reliance on medication. Children, in particular, seemed to do better when given allergy shots for their asthma. Finegold says researchers still don t have all the answers yet why most asthmatic patients are helped by allergy shots, but a few are not. They are called allergens and are separate from the slew of environmental triggers that can provoke asthma, including cold air, smoke, industrial chemicals, perfume, and paint. Sometimes allergic asthma is obvious, Finegold says, such as if every time you go near your cat, you start feeling tightness in your chest or coughing or wheezing, or if the same thing happens during hayfever season, or when you go running in the park.
Heredity plays a role in asthma.
If one parent has asthma, the chances of a child being affected are as high as 25 percent. Quizzing you about your exposure and reactions to various allergens. Having you track your allergic reactions for a week to aid in the diagnosis. Performing skin tests, in which a small amount of the allergen is scratched into, or injected just underneath, the skin. Skin tests are not totally reliable, because if too much of the allergen is administered, even a nonallergic person may react.