Our Blogs
Urticaria
September 28, 2023URTICARIA What is urticaria? Urticaria is more commonly known as hives, wheals, or welts. It is an immuneresponse that results in a skin reaction that causes raised, red, and very itchy patches on theskin. It can range in size from a small spot to larger, more body-wide patches. It can also rangein ...
Read MoreHealthy Lung Month
October 13, 2022
Healthy Lung Month! The month of October celebrates HEALTHY LUNG MONTH! We at Chicago Allergy & Asthma want to take a moment to acknowledge this awareness month. Numerous organizations have joined forces to educate the public about the importance of protecting our lungs. If we take care o...
Labor Day Allergies
September 05, 2022
Happy Labor Day September kicks off with the Labor Day Holiday and ends with the beginning of Fall. Bringing with it Fall Allergies and new triggers for the season. The most common allergen for fall allergies is ragweed. Ragweed is a plant that grows wild almost everywhere, but especially in ...
Medicalert allergy
August 03, 2022
MedicAlert Did you know August is MedicAlert Awareness Month? A medical alert bracelet/necklacecontains unique medical information, such as your conditions, allergies, medication, and more.In an emergency, first responders are trained to search their patient's wrist and neck for amedi...
Allergy Summer Travel
July 11, 2022
Happy July! Summer is now in full swing, and people are taking trips and going on vacations. Chicago Allergy & Asthma wants to offer some travel tips for healthy and safe travels and trips. Be sure to pack medications, a first-aid kit, allergy-friendly snacks, and travel entertain...
Summer Allergies
May 27, 2022
Summer Allergies With Memorial Day here and being the unofficial kick-off of the summer season, we at Chicago Allergy &Asthma want to remind everyone about summer allergies. Not just for yourself, but for those aroundyou as you visit with family and friends and enjoy vacations. ...
Asthma and Allergy Awareness
May 01, 2022
May is Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month!! This couldn’t make us at Chicago Allergy & Asthma feelmore honored than to have an entire month dedicated to our practice specialty. A month where we getto educate and inform our clients, friends, and followers all about what we do and how we hel...
Do I Have a New Food Allergy
July 21, 2021
Do I Have a New Food Allergy? We have been seeing a lot of new food allergies lately and it caught our attention when I saw an article in the newspaper about exactly this topic. "The prevalence of serious food allergies ranges from 10 percent in 2-year-olds and 7.1 percent in child...
Spring Allergies Have Arrived
April 08, 2020
Spring allergy season is upon us again! We are starting to see the typical rise in symptoms for many people throughout Chicago. Allergy symptoms that happen during spring and fall are also known as "hay fever." Spring allergies usually begin in March when the weather begins to...
Is This a Cold or Allergies?
November 01, 2019
With winter approaching and cold weather already here, many people are dealing with sniffles, congestion, and sore throats. When these symptoms occur we all assume that it’s a cold and after a few weeks in will pass. The problem with this assumption is that if you are wrong and ar...
New Medication for Peanut Allergy
May 20, 2019
Good news! Aimmune Therapeutics' peanut allergy drug succeeded in late clinical trials and is under review by the FDA. AR101 is a biological drug that aims to reduce severe allergic reactions that people may have when accidentally exposed to peanuts. It is a capsule that can be ea...
Indoor Plants
April 08, 2019
Can Indoor Plants Purify the Air? Plants are an amazing thing to have inside your home because they convert carbon dioxide into fresh oxygen and can remove toxins from the air we breathe inside. It was a famous NASA experiment in 1989 that first found that indoor plants can rid the air...
Food Allergy versus Food Intolerance
February 28, 2019
Food intolerance is defined by the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology as “difficulty digesting a particular food”. Food allergies cause an immune system reaction, whereas food intolerance is typically a digestive issue. It is important to understand what exac...
Is It Your Cat?
February 15, 2019
Is your cat the culprit? Cats are amazing house hold pets to have so it’s no wonder why 49% of pet owners in the United States have one! The downside however is that pet owners are two times more likely to be allergic to cats than dogs. Cats can produce allergens such as urine, d...
The Allergy Mystery
February 05, 2019
From the NY Times: A 57 year old man suffered from two severe allergic episodes when he had only ever experienced one before. His wife found him directly after one episode that left his face swollen, skin dark purple, and barely able to breath. His son was able to inject him with his father's...
Teen Creates DNA Test For Food Allergies!
January 28, 2019
Teen Creates DNA Test For Food Allergies! From The New York Times: High school student Ayush Alag, a senior at Harker School in San Jose, California has developed a DNA test that can potentially identify whether someone has a deadly food allergy. Ayush's test looks for genetic markers ...
Dinging Out: Avoiding Food Allergies
January 11, 2019
Dinging Out: Tips on avoiding allergic reactions! Dr. Leigh Ann Kerns, a pediatric allergist and immunologist at Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital told Reuters Health that there are basic strategies that should be in place when dining out to avoid life threatening allergic reactions. ...
Undiagnosed Asthma
January 04, 2019
From US News: A survey of more than 33,000 high school students in New York by Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA has concluded that 20% have undiagnosed asthma or asthma-like symptoms. Researchers also found that teenage girls and Asian-Americans were more likely to go undiagnosed. According...
New treatments for Peanut Allergy
December 28, 2018
French biopharmaceutical firm DBV Technologies has created a patch containing proteins of peanuts that allows patients to slowly build up tolerance as an attempt to innovate treatments for those with severe allergies to peanuts! According to Business Insider, "Some parents of childr...
2019 Healthcare Predictions
December 21, 2018
Forbes magazine has made some interesting predictions about the healthcare industry in the upcoming year and some of them are very exciting. One issue that may gain traction next year is the epidemic of loneliness and the actual negative health consequences attached to it. According to Forbes...
Holiday Cooking Ideas
December 14, 2018
The holidays can be a difficult time for people with allergies. So many of the Christmas treats that Americans like to enjoy contain gluten, dairy, egg, and even tree nuts. Everyone deserves to be able to enjoy the food that holiday traditions call for without fear of a potential...
Food Allergy
December 07, 2018
In 1988 the first report made in a medical journal of a peanut allergy fatality was released. By the 90's peanut allergy fatalities were much more common. According to the US charity Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) rates of peanut allergies tripled between 1997 and 2008. Allergy ac...
Asthma and Obesity
November 30, 2018
New Link Between Childhood Asthma and Obesity A new study from Duke University Medical Center including data from more than 500,000 children in the United States suggests that obesity could be the cause of 23 to 27 percent of asthma in children who are obese. Almost 1 million children ...
Do you clean your babies pacifier?
November 16, 2018
Can sucking on your babies pacifier protect them from developing allergies? New studies suggest that a mother's spit and the bacteria in it may help prevent allergies in young children. The study from the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit adds to the theory that early expos...
Peanut Allergy
November 02, 2018
Peanut Allergies have sky rocketed! Why? A study from the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at New York's Sinai hospital found that from 1997 to 2008, peanut allergies have tripled from 1-in-250 children to 1-in-70. Other common food allergies are milk, eggs, wheat, soy, fish and ...
Asthma on a Global Scale
October 26, 2018
New research from the Milken Institute School of Public Heath suggests that policies aimed at improving air quality can reduce the global burden of asthma and respiratory health around the world. This is the first study to quantify the global burden of asthma linked to dirty ...
Allergy Friendly Halloween
October 19, 2018
With Halloween quickly approaching we wanted to share some tips as well as implore people to become involved in the teal movement! The teal pumpkin movement is designed to be sensitive to the needs of children that have food allergies and cannot be involved in trick or treating the...
The Causes of Seasonal Allergies
October 12, 2018
The Seasonal Allergy Culprits! According to the Centers for Disease control ragweed is the leading cause of seasonal allergies. Weeds and pollen's are the main culprit for allergies in from late summer to late fall. Researchers at the US Department of Agriculture stated that the change ...
Increasing Allergies
October 05, 2018
The Rise of Allergy and Asthma Symptoms Asthma and allergy rates have been rising over the past few decades and there are several theories as to why that might be the case. Climate change can trigger a higher pollen and mold count because of rising temperatures. Certain fungus' produce...
National Penicillin Allergy Day
September 28, 2018
National Penicillin Allergy Day is today! National Penicillin Allergy Day is an annual celebration to raise awareness around the impact of carrying a penicillin allergy label and how it affects our patients and their healthcare treatment. Why is it so important to identify whether or not...
The Chicago Plan for Asthma
September 21, 2018
The "Chicago Plan" and the asthma hotspots it's fighing to help! From the Chicago Sun-Times: Should the residents of Chicago be taking these issues more seriously? Chicago's rate of asthma among black children is twice the national average. Although asthma can be passed down genetically...
Asthma and new medications for treatment
September 14, 2018
We came across a nice article in the American Academy of Pediatrics recently and so we wanted to share it with everybody. Three biological drugs have been approved by the FDA for pediatric patients who suffer with severe asthma. Being a possibly life threatening condition, researchers ...
FDA extends EpiPen expiration dates
September 07, 2018
The FDA has extended the expiration date for Epi-Pens and their generic counterparts by four months to combat shortages during the current back-to-school season! They will now have a 24 month shelf life. This change does not apply to all Epi-Pens however. Certiain batches and lot n...