What questions should I ask my doctor after getting an allergy diagnosis?

What questions should I ask my doctor after getting an allergy diagnosis?

Harold Kaiser (Practicing Allergist and Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School) gives expert video advice on: What questions should I ask my doctor after getting an allergy diagnosis?; How soon will I start to feel better after taking allergy medication?; Can I be cured of my allergies? and more...

I think you ought to ask the physician. What's available for medication? How often do I have to take it? How long do I have to take it? What are the side effects? Will this interfere with my other medications? What might I expect in terms of therapeutic response? How long should I wait to feel better before I see you again? What kind of follow up is necessary? Is there anything I should tell anybody else or should I involve my family in practicing better dust avoidance and environmental control? The questions are really quite reasonable but ask them because most of us are busy. The patients are busy, the physicians are busy, and "take a red pill twice a day and see how things play out" is not quite a good enough way to deal with a chronic ongoing allergic problem.