Blood test for food Allergies

[Bigal]

A friend of mine told me that there is a blood test for food allergies. My son has already had scratch tests for a bout a dozen food allergies. But I was told that this blood test is much more comprehensive and would test for many more foods. Has anybody tried this? Any success finding tic triggers?

 

Thanks

Alan

[trggirl]

We did the blood food allergy test. My daughter showed mild allergies on quite a few things. The big one that stood out was dairy. We do try to stay away from dairy, gluten, corn, and MSG. I can't say that it helped her tics but she had terrible tummy problems and it really has helped that.

[Cj60]

Hi Alan,

 

I'm glad to hear your son's tics are lessening a little.

 

When we tested our son for food sensitivities around 1.5 yrs. ago, he was given a whole battery of pin pricks. It took two visits, since his arms weren't big enough for all the tests. Twelve tests seems not to be a real comprehensive number of tests, but I'm not sure how the scratch test works.

 

The dr. who tested our son was of the mind that the skin prick method was a better method than the blood test, stating (if I recall correctly) that it could distinguish between different levels of reactions to an offending food or other allergen, whereas the blood test wasn't as effective in that regard. That being said, I've read here that the blood test is a highly sensitive test. Our ped. (very mainstream) would have given us the blood test, but we opted to go to a environmental practice that had lots of experience not only in testing for the allergens, but also in prividing support concerning how to deal with the sensitivities that were identified though the tests.

 

Good luck,

 

Chris

[Wombat140]

We were wondering about a blood test for IgG-mediated intolerances (ELISA test), but I've come across a lot of things that say there's no evidence that it indicates anything but what you've eaten that day. Have any of you got any use out of IgG testing? I wasn't sure whether testing for standard (IgE) allergies would be a lot of use, since those apparently have almost immediate effects whereas my tics are pretty much the same all day. Does that make any sense, or might it be an IgE-based allergy after all?

Am getting to the end of my tether...

Many thanks,

Wombat

[Bigal]

We were wondering about a blood test for IgG-mediated intolerances (ELISA test), but I've come across a lot of things that say there's no evidence that it indicates anything but what you've eaten that day. Have any of you got any use out of IgG testing? I wasn't sure whether testing for standard (IgE) allergies would be a lot of use, since those apparently have almost immediate effects whereas my tics are pretty much the same all day. Does that make any sense, or might it be an IgE-based allergy after all?

Am getting to the end of my tether...

Many thanks,

Wombat

Hi Wombat

 

Honestly, I'm getting really confused by these tests. But FWIW, when I spoke to my/my son's allergist yesterday he said something very similar to what you just said about IGg tests. And he didn't have a nice thing to say about those who sell the tests. He said it's useless and that they must know that. Honestly, I don't know what to think anymore.

 

You mentioned ELISA test and that confuses me. I thought IGg is a rast test. I thought Elisa was something else.

 

Alan

[Wombat140]

IgG is the name of the type of antibody they test for. As far as I can make out from Wikipedia, ELISA and RAST are indeed two different tests, but presumably they can both be used to detect IgG.

[gators]

Hello all-

 

We had my son tested with IGG and IGE. We were told by the integrative doctor that one tested a true allergy and one tested a sensitivity. These tests were done via a blood test. My son came up highly sensitive and mildly allergic to dairy- we eliminated dairy totally from his diet. Previous to starting the diet we put him on Topamax because the tics were affecting his school work and life. We did the testing with the thought if something shows up we can start an elimination diet and then reduce the meds. He started experiencing daily headaches which we thought might be from the med- so we started to decrease the med- that was a huge mistake. Tics came back full force and he was miserable- could hardly function at school. I started to research and found something similar to what someone else posted on here. The generic form of the Topamax was what I think was causing the problem. We put him back on the brand and after several weeks we saw a huge improvement. Then we wondered if the diet was doing anything at all. We reintroduced dairy without any problems. The elimination diet didn't change anything- it was the Topamax that was helping.