The High Cost of Hay Fever
If we took a peek inside your medicine cabinet, what would it look like? If you are like a lot of people, your cabinet would be a jumble of allergy medicines, decongestants, cough suppressants and expectorants with a few stray pain relievers and fever reducers rolling around.
Here at Any Lab Test Now, we want to help you take control of your seasonal allergies by helping you pinpoint your triggers with allergy testing. Without the right information, you are more likely to self-misdiagnose and purchase and use the wrong types of medications, medications that aren’t cheap. When your symptoms strike, will you be prepared?
HIDDEN COST OF YOUR COUGH
Let’s start with an Australian study published last year. They studied nearly 300 people who believed they had hay fever based upon their symptoms. The researchers found that only 17 percent of them selected the correct over-the-counter medications to treat their symptoms.
Those costs add up. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, the annual cost of allergies exceeds $18 billion. Allergy sufferers are also more likely to miss work – 1.7 more days lost than non-allergy sufferers. What could save you time, money and suffering? It could be as simple as allergy testing.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND YOUR SYMPTOMS
Most doctors would agree that the first step in winning your battle against seasonal allergies is to know your triggers, and that’s where your local Any Lab Test Now can help. We offer a wide range of allergy testing that will help you fight back when it seems like your body is in revolt!
The experts at the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI) say seasonal allergies are like other types of allergies. They develop when the body’s immune system overreacts to something in the environment, usually during spring, summer or fall when certain plants pollinate. The ACAAI estimates that as many as 50 million people have allergies of some type. Usually, the symptoms include:
- Sneezing
- Coughing
- Itchy eyes
- Runny nose
If you leave them untreated, problems can worsen, so it’s a good idea to treat them — and an even better idea to avoid them altogether.
If you find that you are sneezing and coughing during certain times of the year, you may have seasonal allergies, but the best way to find relief (and save yourself some money in the process) is to pinpoint exactly what’s triggering your symptoms. The simplest way to do that is by taking advantage of the wide range of allergy testing we offer at Any Lab Test Now.
PREVENTION BEGINS WITH ALLERGY TESTING
Any Lab Test Now offers numerous types of allergy tests. One of our lab experts can help you decide which one would be best for you.
Our Environmental Allergy Test is a combination panel that measures IgG and IgE antibodies to 90 food allergens and 45 environmental allergens (will test for 45 regional environmental allergen such as grass, weeds, trees and mold.) The Basic (Pediatric) Allergy Panel is the perfect introductory test. It screens for allergies to 32 environmental substances and foods, including eight common grasses and weeds, including ragweed. There are many more to choose from and we can help guide you toward the test that is right for you.
One of the best things about allergy testing at Any Lab Test Now is the blood draw! That may sound crazy, but remember, it wasn’t that long ago that testing like this used to require hundreds of needle pricks to determine an allergy reaction. Now, one simple blood draw can look for the specific antibodies to hundreds of substances — using only one needle.
Before the sneezing and wheezing has you crawling to your local pharmacy buying everything on the shelf to find relief, stop in at Any Lab Test Now and ask about allergy testing. It will save you time, trouble, and probably even some of your hard-earned cash.
