Jump to content

Menu

Has anyone used an independant lab for food allergy testing?


Recommended Posts

What type of test are they doing? I had the Alcat test done twice. The first time it seemed to help and the second it made no difference. Considering the test had me avoid about 30 difference foods and spices (on top of being dairy and gluten-free already) it was extremely frustrating.

 

Later I did some reseach and found that the Alcat isn't very reliable. What especially bothered me was all their official descriptions never explained what they were looking for. I think a legitimate allergy/intolerance test would say something like, "We are testing for IgA antibodies to casein." Then you can look on PubMed to see if any medical journals mention what is being tested for.

 

I know a few people who've had Elisa food allergy tests and they always come back with rediculously long lists of foods to avoid, and yet the patients never seem to get any better. I follow a strict gluten and dairy-free diet, and I try to eat low-carb paleo as well, so I'm used to a limited diet - but even by my standards, these lists of food "sensitivites" given to my friends were insane.

 

Anyway, all that is to say you needmto research the specific type of test and company carefully.

 

Do you have a specific test you are thinking of trying?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would only do IgE testing. That would be Immuno-CAP RAST specifically. It would be a blood test--not saliva or urine. I don't know if you can get those independent or not.

 

Other testing for allergies does not have scientific support for its reliability. What I mean is when they run the same sample with different labs or even the same lab they don't get reliable results. The technology just isn't there. Most people come away with a long list of foods to (usually unnecessarily imo) avoid. I know, though, some people feel differently about those tests. I would not put my money and effort there.

 

The best way to figure out food allergies and even intolerances is by tracking diet and symptoms. If you do a rotation diet you'll usually be able to track things down. The only cost is the hassle. My son's food allergies are very obvious with immediate hives or worse depending on the item. But he kept getting a mystery rash and stomach upset and I just couldn't figure it out. We did a rotation diet and tracked down the culprit even with those vague symptoms.

Edited by sbgrace
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Allergists only trust data from IgE. Even that can be hard to interpret depending on the allergy. That said, we had other tests (IgG?) run for milk and dairy by our autism dr. It was still a blood test. While I don't put much stock in these tests, it was interesting bc ds had no response and the doc said this is highly unusual, lowest he's seen in kids on the spectrum - yea! But when I shared what we were doing with my allergist, he said nobody really knows how to interpret these results so he wouldn't know what to do with them anyhow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would only do IgE testing. That would be Immuno-CAP RAST specifically. It would be a blood test--not saliva or urine. I don't know if you can get those independent or not.

 

Other testing for allergies does not have scientific support for its reliability. What I mean is when they run the same sample with different labs or even the same lab they don't get reliable results. The technology just isn't there. Most people come away with a long list of foods to (usually unnecessarily imo) avoid. I know, though, some people feel differently about those tests. I would not put my money and effort there.

 

The best way to figure out food allergies and even intolerances is by tracking diet and symptoms. If you do a rotation diet you'll usually be able to track things down. The only cost is the hassle. My son's food allergies are very obvious with immediate hives or worse depending on the item. But he kept getting a mystery rash and stomach upset and I just couldn't figure it out. We did a rotation diet and tracked down the culprit even with those vague symptoms.

 

 

:iagree: :iagree: :iagree:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We had a stool test done on my 6yo ds at Enterolab to test for intolerance to gluten, milk, egg & soy. We had already self-diagnosed him with gluten intolerance and cut gluten out of his diet, and the Doctor had done a blood test for allergies that came up negative.

 

The lab test came back reflecting a high number in gluten (which probably, we assume, would have been even higher if we hadn't already cut out most gluten) and within normal range numbers for the others - so, I would say that it was a reasonable result for what we anticipated. We weren't sure about milk - I decided not to cut it out based on this test, but he still has some more mild issue that we are exploring.

 

I was satisfied - they came highly rated, dealing with them (via computer - never needed to contact them directly) was easy, and the results came back about what we thought they would.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would only do IgE testing. That would be Immuno-CAP RAST specifically. It would be a blood test--not saliva or urine. I don't know if you can get those independent or not.

 

Other testing for allergies does not have scientific support for its reliability. What I mean is when they run the same sample with different labs or even the same lab they don't get reliable results. The technology just isn't there. Most people come away with a long list of foods to (usually unnecessarily imo) avoid. I know, though, some people feel differently about those tests. I would not put my money and effort there.

 

The best way to figure out food allergies and even intolerances is by tracking diet and symptoms. If you do a rotation diet you'll usually be able to track things down. The only cost is the hassle. My son's food allergies are very obvious with immediate hives or worse depending on the item. But he kept getting a mystery rash and stomach upset and I just couldn't figure it out. We did a rotation diet and tracked down the culprit even with those vague symptoms.

 

While I agree the Igg aren't totally reliable I think they are helpful. We tried eliminating things on our own for my DD and were only able to confirm Wheat. We had the Standard Food Panel done thru US BioTek and it showed 5 things. Wheat, Milk (all dairy/whey/casin/etc), sesame, cranberry & pecans. I would never have thought to remove cranberry & sesame, because really, how often does one consume those things? Well almost immediatly she looked better, felt better, slept better.

 

Our naturopath said to challenge the items one at a time. Well, wheat gives her bloody noses & ezcema (and eventually hives), Milk makes her vomit (now), cranberries give her headaches and we haven't tried the others.

 

So for us it was TOTALLY worth the money spent. She feels totally better and issues she's had for 12 years have gone away. She refuses to intentionally cheat because she knows how she feels afterwards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, I was looking at places like Enterolab.

 

Basically, the short story is that DS was diagnosed with Celiac. After removing gluten, he did much, much better, but has begun to get a nagging stomach ache again. We eliminated milk products for a month then reintroduced, no changes. So still a mystery there.

 

Now, baby DD is almost a year old and is stuck the size of a small 6 month old, despite a solid appetite and frequent nursing. We are checking on things like thyroid and growth hormone, but the test for gluten sensitivity is unreliable at her age, so I don't know if it will turn anything up. So she's our other mystery!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...