Families on the North Shore dealing with a child's food allergy have a new place to go for testing and treatment. Latitude Food Allergy Care, a group of clinics that focuses only on food allergies, has opened its first Long Island office at 935 Northern Boulevard in Great Neck.

The clinic is led by two board-certified allergists, Dr. Amanda Schneider and Dr. Erin Banta. Latitude advertises the Great Neck office as having no waitlist.

What the clinic does

Latitude's Long Island office covers the full path from diagnosis to treatment. Its listed services include:

  • Testing: skin testing, in-office blood draws, and IgE and component blood testing through a partner lab
  • Oral food challenges: supervised feedings of a suspected allergen, used to confirm or rule out an allergy
  • Oral immunotherapy (OIT): including treatment for multiple allergens at once
  • Xolair: an injectable medication used in food allergy treatment
  • Prevention: guidance on early food introduction for infants
  • Assessments: food allergy and sensitivity assessments and new patient consultations

Oral immunotherapy is the treatment that sets clinics like this apart. Instead of only avoiding a food, a patient eats tiny, carefully measured amounts of it under medical supervision, increasing the dose gradually over months to raise the amount the body can tolerate. The goal is protection against an accidental bite, the kind of exposure that makes restaurants, school lunches and birthday parties stressful for families. Latitude says it has published OIT outcome data with Weill Cornell Medicine.

Where its patients come from

The clinic lists the communities it expects to serve: Great Neck, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, Lake Success, Kensington, Manhasset, Port Washington, Roslyn, Roslyn Heights, New Hyde Park, Garden City, Mineola, Floral Park, East Hills, Herricks, Albertson, East Williston, Williston Park, Syosset and Jericho, along with Little Neck, Bayside, Douglaston and Whitestone over the Queens line.

Latitude also runs clinics in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Irvine, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area. The company says it accepts most insurance plans.

Hours and how to book

Visits are by appointment only, Monday through Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The clinic is closed to visits Thursday and Friday. Phones are answered Monday through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The office is in Suite 303-B at 935 Northern Boulevard, Great Neck, with free parking on site. The phone number is 516-268-6427, and new patients can request a consultation through Latitude's website.

Sources