How to Treat a Shellfish Allergy [Chacko Allergy]

atlantaallergy... - Here Dr. Thomas Chacko of Chacko Allergy, Asthma and Sinus Center explains the treatment options for a shellfish allergy.
Transcription:
How do you treat shellfish allergy or seafood allergy? First of all, you have to know that you have that seafood allergy. Meaning, you have to have a kind of reaction.
Once we know you have a reaction to, let us say, shrimp then we could do some testing either by scratch testing or by bloodwork. And that would give me a level of how much IgE or allergy antibody you have to, let us say, shrimp.
Once I know those levels, I can get a risk somewhat of what their reaction would be but in reality most of the time it is just avoidance and being aware. We do have desensitization for many, many foods but shellfish, the protein, is so variable that it is difficult to do the desensitization.
I would say I do have many, many people who were told they were shellfish allergic for various reasons and we retested them and they are totally negative or very low and we do challenges to see if they truly are or not. So, that is an option -- we do challenges all the time.
But in general, if someone is truly shellfish allergic with documented antibodies or documented allergy to that, the treatment is avoidance and making sure they have an epinephrine injector.
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