Hi, please could I ask some advice on what I can expect at the doctor about these issues. I've always felt totally fobbed off in the past, and feel I'm managing it alone. These are DS (age 8)'s allergy-related issues:
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He gets a stuffy nose and sniffs every day. I think it's worse in the summer, but happens all year round. Sneezes in the mornings. I give Benadryl or loratadine, which seems to work a little bit sometimes - but the difference is minor. And I just don't know about using them long-term (do people do this, and is it OK??).
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I think he might have some asthma symptoms. I've been sent away with a blue inhaler (which we use sometimes sometimes) and no investigation/diagnosis on 3 occasions, because they couldn't hear any wheeze. I've never heard him wheeze (except once when he was 18 months and had some viral wheeze briefly), and generally he doesn't cough (he's fine at night), but he does this sort of gasping thing, sounds breathless when he reads aloud sometimes, and this morning (he has got a cold as well), he sounded breathless walking up the hill to school.
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He's had eczema, and a flakey scalp, since 8 months old. This is usually fairly easy to manage with 1% hydrocortisone and emolients, so I don't need any more input on this. But I know it makes all the other stuff more likely to be allergy-related.
So:
Can I ask the doctor to test what he's allergic to? They've been totally dismissive of this before. I've heard they can even do desensitisation if it's persistent, but my doctor was actually quite rude when I asked about this and said I'd been "reading too much" 
Also, should he have a brown as well as a blue inhaler? And can I expect them to test to see whether he does have asthma - to get a diagnosis?
Sorry for the massive post and thank you so much if you've got to the end of it!