Tagged With "testing"

I work for an allergist so this is really helpful information. We are getting new PFT equipment and can’t wait to try it out!

Asthma is a chronic disease that causes your airways to be inflamed. The most common symptoms of asthma are coughing, shortness of breath, wheezing and chest tightness. But there are other diseases that can have the same symptoms of asthma. For your doctor to make the right diagnosis, it is important to know if your airways are inflamed.

If you are on a treatment plan for asthma but the treatment doesn’t seem to be working, you might not have asthma. Or you may need a different type of asthma medicine. If you’ve been misdiagnosed, you might be trying to treat a condition you don’t have – and at the same time possibly ignoring a condition you really have.

Doctors can use a variety of tools and tests to get a good picture of your health. When it comes to asthma, lung function tests are helpful for not only diagnosing asthma, but for monitoring your lung function as well.

Circassia Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on respiratory disease, is pleased to announce that Aetna, one of the largest health insurance companies in the United States, has updated its Exhaled Breath Tests Clinical Policy to include the measurement of exhaled nitric oxide as “medically necessary” for the evaluation of asthma and for monitoring the response to long-term control therapy.

Thank goodness . I hated fighting with insurance every time it was ordered by pulmonary!

Jill, glad to hear this will help you. How often have you had the FeNO testing done?

I have eczema and seasonal allergies. My doctor wants to do a skin test to see if I should get allergy shots. Can I get allergy shots if I have eczema? Does eczema affect the accuracy of allergy skin test results?

Asthma is a chronic disease that causes you to have inflammation in your airways. Doctors use lung function tests to see how your lungs function or to see if you have inflammation. Spirometry is one of the most common lung function tests.

There are several types of lung function tests. If your doctor wants to see how sensitive your lungs are, they may have you do a provocation (proh-voh-KA-shun) test. It is also called a challenge or a trigger test.

While I know that I am in the tiny percentage of the population who has a strong negative reaction to the Methacholine Challenge test, I want to offer one caveat. About six years ago, I had chronic cough and my doctor thought I might have asthma so he had me take the Methacholine Challenge test. Taking the test turned my, as yet unknown, asthma into moderate-to-severe persistent asthma. Hope no one else has this experience but it is something to consider.