on the fence about ALCAT

[riomidwife]

I'm considering doing an ALCAT on my son, who is 3, but after all the allergy tests we've done over the years I have my suspicions. They are such a grey can of worms, with all the false-positives false-negatives.

For example, I wonder, if we were all tested for our white blood cell response to certain foods, or our IgG response, how many of us would show a positive "reaction" to food we feel we generally tolerate well? If we tested everyone, what would the baselines look like? Would the average person show antibodies or white blood cell response to 20 things? 100 things?

IgG testing was unhelpful for us, so for the price I am really on the fence with ALCAT. Our naturopath is a big believer. I'm not so sure. Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

[kjbrown92]

most people here know my experience with ALCAT, which was good. It tests an inflammatory response to the food (not an IgG and not a white blood cell response), just for clarification. With DD2 I had done an elimination diet and she was on about 20 foods for 1.5 years. I did the ALCAT test to see what we could add back in. Corn was the false negative, which was one of her worst (though she hadn't had it in at least a year, and they say you have to have the food within 6 months for it to be accurate). My DS came back with a whole list of foods and I didn't think it could be possible, until I took all the foods out. And his whole personality changed (for the better). He had one false negative (white potato) that I already knew, and he lost corn, which I gave him all the time instead of rotating it like I was supposed to, and he lost green beans and carrots, which had been mild, but I gave him those too frequently as well. If you get over a certain number of foods tested (I think it was 100), they give you a rotation to follow, and even tell you which days to add your milds back in on, when you add those. For us, it was a great experience. But it's not for everyone I'm sure.

[riomidwife]

Thanks for sharing that. So how many foods did you test for? And how many did your son test positive for? And are you saying he only received two false-positives?

My understanding of the ALCAT lab test, based on info from their own website and other research I have done, is that is assessing white blood cell response to food, specifically changes in size and volume. (Leukocytes are white blood cells).

[kjbrown92]

I thought it was inflammatory response, but I haven't looked at their website in a while. DS was tested for 150 foods (plus additives) and DD2 was tested for 200 foods (plus additives).

Neither of them received any false positives that I know of, just false negatives (corn for DD2, and white potato for DS). DS became intolerant to corn after eating it every day, which is one of the things that the rotation diet is supposed to prevent. Two years later, we still rotate anything that was mild or moderate and added back in. We're more free with the green/safe things. And everything that has been tried, has not been added back in (and I'm leaving the top 4: dairy, gluten, soy, corn for last).

They each reacted to 30-40 foods in varying degrees.

[riomidwife]

Thanks Kathy. Sounds like it was a worthwhile investment for your family!

[scsigrl]

Now you ladies have me looking into it. We have pretty much top 8, banana, citrus and Celiacs on top of it. In going GF I have had to go into non organics and am thinking colorings. So $750 per kid. DH is gonna LOVE this!

[riomidwife]

yah, I wonder if their prices have gone up? I don't remember the panels being quite as high.

If anyone else has personal experience with ALCAT I'd love to hear about it!

[beadmama]

I just got our results back so no testimony yet but my friend got hers back 3 weeks or so ago and she is having amazing results. She has suffered from chronic fatigue for the last 3 years and lots of other health problems. When her results came back our acupuncturist was shocked at how many foods came up bad for her. She cut out all the foods and is only eating the green foods and within 72 hours she has felt better than ever before! The other day some onion (on her red list) accidentally got in her food and she ate it and is really sick. Torso rash and in bed which is hard to deal with when you have a 2.5 yo. She does not have enough foods to rotate right now but when she can add more things she will. She has said the complete change of foods has been a real pain but she would do it all over again because of how much it has helped her.

I hope we have the same results with ours. My mom, sister and dh did the tests as well so it will be interesting how so many of us do.

[riomidwife]

Thanks for sharing that! I hope you will update with your results!

[True Blue]

Did you get your results yet? I'd love to hear the outcomes....