Albuquerque Providers & Services

Allergy Tests are used to confirm the presence of sensitivity to aeroallergens (pollen, pets, mold, dust mites), foods, venoms, drugs, or chemicals.

Skin Tests:

• Prick: For a prick test, we’ll use a small, concentrated amount of the potential allergen to put just under the top layer of the skin. The response to the allergen is immediate, and shows results within 15 minutes.
• Intradermal: Similar to the prick test, intradermal skin tests inject 0.02 ml of a diluted form of the allergen’s extract under the top layer of skin. The response shows within 15 minutes of placement.
• Patch: Patch tests apply allergens directly to the surface of the skin and are taped and left in place for 48 to 96 hours.

Blood Tests:

• ImmunoCap: When we can’t perform a skin test, we’ll use an ImmunoCAP, which is a radioallergosorbent test. This test will detect levels of specific antibodies created by the body in response to an allergen.
  • Radioallergosorbent tests are the most common blood test done which detects levels of specific IGE antibodies when skin testing is unable to be performed.
• IGE: An IGE test gives a generalized look at the amount of allergic antibodies produced by the body.

Oral Challenges

Oral challenges are performed in a controlled, monitored environment where small amounts of the suspected allergen are fed to the test subject, in increasing amounts over time until a reaction occurs. The purpose is to elicit the least reaction necessary to establish a diagnosis. The subject is then immediately treated.

A CT scan is a three-dimensional x-ray image of the anatomy known as a computerized tomography, which helps physicians to diagnose disease and plan treatment or surgery.

Why do we use CT scans?

We use the CT scan to see any infection or swelling within your sinus cavities. If you have a history of moderate to severe asthma that is unresponsive to medical management, then we will most likely use a CT scan to confirm this diagnosis.

We use a low-dose mini scanner. These scanners provide low radiation for our patients, excellent image quality, and complete in-office patient care.

A nasal endoscopy is an examination of the nose using a nasal telescope. This instrument is very small, and is guided easily through the nostril to examine the nasal passages and sinuses. The nose is numbed during this procedure, and though  a minimally invasive examination, the endoscopy is enough to provide detailed information for our ENTs.

We provide allergen immunotherapy or allergy shots to our patients with allergy symptoms that are so severe they don’t respond to traditional allergy medication. Immunotherapy works by providing repeated exposure to the allergen, which allows the body to build up a resistance to it over time.

The initial build-up phase involves a series of injections given on a regular weekly or bi-weekly basis; the maintenance injections are given every 2-4 weeks. Improvements usually occur over a periods of three to six months.

Sublingual Immunotherapy
The no-shot allergy treatment, is a new form of allergy immunotherapy offered at BreatheAmerica. Also referred to as SLIT, Sublingual Immunotherapy gives you the ability to treat your allergies from the safety of you home! Learn more about treating your grass pollen and ragweed allergies at home, read our blog!

With infusion therapy, fluids or medications are delivered to the body directly into a blood vessel or subcutaneous tissue. This is used for certain medications that cannot be given orally. We infuse a variety of medications primarily to treat infections and immunologic disorders. These medications can be delivered via intravenous infusion, subcutaneous infusion, and subcutaneous injection. We offer infusion therapy at our ambulatory infusion centers and BreatheAmerica clinics.

Pulmonary function testing is performed to evaluate lung function. There are many different types of tests available, but most commonly we use spirometry to measure the amount of air a patient forcefully exhales into a mouthpiece connected to a computer. The computer compares this measurement to predicted values for the patient’s age, sex, and race. The spirometry is the gold standard for diagnosing obstructive lung diseases, like COPD.