Process
Prior to testing, avoid taking oral prednisone or other immunosuppressive medications for at least a week prior to testing. Steroid inhalers are OK to use. Avoid sunlight/sunburn for at least a week on the back as this may suppress positive reactions. Antihistamines such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl) or cetirizine (Zyrtec) are permissible prior to and during testing.
Application of the patch tests will take about half an hour, though many times the overall appointment time will be longer as your provider will take an extensive history. Tiny quantities of 25 to ~150 materials (allergens) in individual square plastic or round aluminium chambers are applied to the upper back. They are kept in place with special hypoallergenic adhesive tape. The patches stay in place undisturbed for at least 48 hours. Getting the back wet during patch testing should be avoided (no shower). Vigorous exercise or stretching may disrupt the tests.
At the second appointment, usually 48 hours later, the patches will be removed. Sometimes further patches are applied. The back is marked with an indelible black felt tip pen or other suitable marker to identify the test sites and a preliminary reading is done. These marks must be visible at the third appointment, usually 24–48 hours later (72–96 hours after application). The back should be checked and if necessary re-marked on several occasions between the 2nd and 3rd appointments. In some cases, a reading at 7 days may be requested, especially if a special metal series is tested.
Read more about this topic: Patch Test (medicine)
Famous quotes containing the word process:
“The American, if he has a spark of national feeling, will be humiliated by the very prospect of a foreigner’s visit to Congress—these, for the most part, illiterate hacks whose fancy vests are spotted with gravy, and whose speeches, hypocritical, unctuous, and slovenly, are spotted also with the gravy of political patronage, these persons are a reflection on the democratic process rather than of it; they expose it in its process rather than of it; they expose it in its underwear.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“... geometry became a symbol for human relations, except that it was better, because in geometry things never go bad. If certain things occur, if certain lines meet, an angle is born. You cannot fail. It’s not going to fail; it is eternal. I found in rules of mathematics a peace and a trust that I could not place in human beings. This sublimation was total and remained total. Thus, I’m able to avoid or manipulate or process pain.”
—Louise Bourgeois (b. 1911)
“Rules and particular inferences alike are justified by being brought into agreement with each other. A rule is amended if it yields an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend. The process of justification is the delicate one of making mutual adjustments between rules and accepted inferences; and in the agreement achieved lies the only justification needed for either.”
—Nelson Goodman (b. 1906)