Food Allergies

There is a lot of confusion about food allergies in the public today.  Even among healthcare providers, ask the same question to 10 individuals, and you’ll get multiple different answers. 

It is first important to recognize there are different types of “allergic” reactions, or immune reactions (http://icimmedics.com/articles/allergy/food-allergies/).  Immediate reactions are those that the schools and daycares are most concerned about, which we also hear about in the media.  Symptoms include tingling around the mouth, swelling of the tongue or face, swelling or itching of the throat, difficulty breathing and anaphylaxis.  Testing for these immediate reactions is done by both blood testing and skin prick testing. 

Delayed reactions, however, are those that are less obvious and less threatening, but cause daily dysfunctional symptoms that greatly affect our qualities of lives nonetheless.  Symptoms for such reactions include recurrent headaches, eczema, sinus congestion and postnasal dripping, joint aches, abdominal symptoms, and more.  Testing for these delayed reactions is done by blood pin prick testing, but such testing is not yet available by typical insurance-covered laboratories.  The gold standard for identifying these food allergies is an accurate personal journal during an elimination diet (and there are a few different ways to do such elimination diets).  But my professional and personal experience is that people often would rather take the path of least resistance with testing than take the more laborious route with elimination diets for weeks on end.  More so, the accuracy of our subjective journaling can be quite variable as well.  There are specialty labs that do testing of this nature, at variable costs (for example, Metametrix and Genova). 

http://www.foodallergysolutions.com/food-allergy-news0202.html