Dust allergy and diagnostic tests

The symptom of dust allergy is the most common way of diagnosing the disease. The most prevalent signs that indicate occurrence of dust mite allergies are: coughing, rashes and swelling, continuous sneezing, runny and stuffy nose and watery eyes. In more severe cases people also experience chest pain and difficulty in breathing.

However, before detecting these symptoms as signs of dust allergy, you must know that these are pretty common allergy symptoms for most allergy triggers. Especially hay fever has a lot of symptoms in common with dust allergy. So, in most cases, the physician recommends laboratory tests for detecting the disease.

The most common tests recommended by the allergists are skin test and RAST. Skin test is done by applying the potential allergen to arms or back of the affected person. If the person is allergic to that substance, his or her skin will show reactions immediately.

RAST is a kind of blood test also known as radioallergosorbent test. It helps in finding out the allergen responsible of causing allergic reactions in the patient. It detects antibodies. This process is more reliable that the skin prick test.