Provided By: Philip Rancitelli, MD, FAAAAI
Allergist/Immunologist
This is a question we often get from prospective patients and referring primary care providers.
If over the counter medications and/or medications prescribed by your primary care provider aren’t covering symptoms to your satisfaction, consider a consultation with an allergy/immunology specialist. We can identify your triggers, educate you on avoidance measures, and discuss second- and third-line therapies that might suit you better.
If you prefer to avoid/minimize exposure to medications, allergen immunotherapy (allergy shots or sublingual tablets) might be a great option for you. Allergists/immunologists have advanced training to provide this type of treatment.
- Allergen immunotherapy helps desensitize the body to allergic triggers, which results in further symptom improvement and less reliance on medications.
- Keep in mind, allergen immunotherapy is also “natural”. It is a vaccine comprised of your allergic triggers, not medicine.
- Allergen immunotherapy also reduces the risk of asthma in children.
If you have asthma, you should consider seeing an allergist/immunologist to optimize treatment in any of the following scenarios:
- You require a daily preventive medication for asthma (inhaler and/or montelukast).
- Your rescue inhaler is required more than twice per week.
- Nocturnal symptoms (waking up at night due to asthma) occur more than twice per month.
- Exercise is difficult due to asthma symptoms.
- Steroids have been required for asthma attacks more than twice over the previous 12 months.
Also keep in mind, we have the expertise to prescribe complex biologics for management of severe and poorly controlled asthma.
Speaking of biologics, allergists/immunologists are uniquely trained to prescribe biologic medications for other conditions as well, including:
- Atopic dermatitis
- Hives
- Food allergies
- Nasal polyps (in coordination with our ENT partners)
Ohio ENT and Allergy Physicians also has a robust food allergy desensitization program. We treat children and adults with food allergies, and the earlier oral immunotherapy (OIT) is initiated, the better it works!