Regina G. Barber

What is up with this?

That's Dr. Gina DePoole-Hidalgo.

I invited her to the NPR studios because she's a pediatric and adult allergist in the D.C.

suburbs.

And she very patiently began our conversation with a recap of what allergies are.

People's bodies have been doing this, encountering allergens, overreacting, creating these allergic antibodies for a long time, which means doctors have been trying to treat it for a long time.

But what if I told you there was another kind of treatment that worked for all but the most severe allergies?

One that didn't just treat the symptoms of your allergies, but the actual cause of them.

So today on the show, allergy treatments.

We're learning where our allergies come from, how they're detected, and even how to treat them so they're effectively gone.

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

So, Dr. Gina, can I call you Dr. Gina?

Yes, you can call me Dr. Gina.

Excellent.

Let's start with allergies.

I was well into my adulthood when I finally did the allergy panel to check if I had allergies because I suspected.

Can you, for our listeners, tell us how does this test work?

Yeah, I found out I was allergic to, let me read this, starting from most intense to least intense.

Basically all grasses, dust mites, some tree pollen and weeds, cats, I have four cats, cockroaches equal to cats, feathers, mosquitoes.

What's happening in my body when I encounter these allergens?