What parents can expect when taking your child to an allergy specialist

Ron Ferdman, MD Pediatrician, Allergy & Immunology, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, shares advice for parents on what to expect when taking your child to an allergy specialist
What To Expect When Taking Your Child To An Allergy Specialist
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What parents can expect when taking your child to an allergy specialist

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If your child is referred to an allergist, the first thing you should expect is that the allergist takes a complete medical history. We can diagnose 80-90 percent of allergic problems just by speaking to the family and finding out the symptoms, the type of symptoms, and the circumstances surrounding the symptoms. After a complete medical history, most of the time, we will do some sort of allergy test. That test could be a skin test or a blood test. Most of the time, those tests will confirm your allergies or strengthen the opinion of what's causing the allergy. Occasionally, the tests are not exactly diagnostic and we have to do additional tests. The most common, especially for a food allergy, is called a food challenge. We will see if you have a reaction to the food under controlled circumstances.

Ron Ferdman, MD Pediatrician, Allergy & Immunology, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, shares advice for parents on what to expect when taking your child to an allergy specialist

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Ronald Ferdman, MD

Pediatrician, Allergy and Immunology, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Ronald Ferdman received his BA from the University of California at San Diego and his MD from Hahnemann University (now Drexel University) in Philadelphia.  He completed both his Pediatric residency and his fellowship in Allergy/Immunology at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, then obtained a Masters in Medical Education (MEd) from the University of Southern California (USC) School of Education.  He currently is an attending physician in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Allergy at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.  He is board certified allergy/immunologist, and is a fellow in the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.  His current interests include management of allergic and immunologic diseases in high-risk children and education for families and clinicians. He is a California native, where he currently lives with his wife Susan and their three of four children, and spends his spare time wishing for more.

 

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