Should I Trust These Allergy Tests?

[brainysmurfette]

My allergies were unusually bad this spring. I've been on allergy shots in the past, so I saw a new allergist this week to run a batch of tests. I also had my food allergies re-tested. I've had scratch tests in the past (2 times), and I was very reactive to many allergens.

This time, I did not react to anything (except for one lone allergen), including foods that have caused anaphylactic reactions in the past. I tested negative for eggs, even though I cheated last month with a sugar cookie and had the usual hives and itchiness. I tested negative to fish (ana. food), but I've had false negatives to that in the past. I've had recent reactions to trace amounts of that, too (anchovy as a salad dressing ingredient).

Overall, I'm puzzled about the results. It would be nice if my allergies really have gone away, but I'm unsure about trusting these results since they are so far removed from my past results and are inconsistent with my symptoms. I am inclined to believe that my avoidance of my food allergans for the last seven years has lowered my level of reaction, but I still have the allergy--and reintroducing these foods would eventually cause the severity of the reaction to increase. The dr said I could start eating these foods again, but I'm scared to do so. Thoughts?

Also, some of the sites showed a reaction 24 hours after the injections, and have been getting worse since. I often have delayed reactions.

[kjbrown92]

First, tell the doctor that you had the delayed reaction. Then see what he says.

When I had DD scratch tested, she didn't react to foods. But the next day, the brewers yeast (or possibly bakers yeast, the doctor gave me conflicting reports oral and written) became the size of a quarter and stayed that way for more than a week. He said, that was a reaction so she should avoid it.

[harrietsmama]

The other thing is, my kids *aren't* allergic to anything according to allergists, but they do have food intolerances, we used applied kinesiology to test, including bringing in samples of certain things like ingredients for my son's homemade formula. Eliminating the foods that showed up that way really helped. for example, my dd can eat sweet corn, corn meal etc., but not popcorn. it's a different plant. And my son can't have okra. how often do they test for that? but it comes in our CSA share so we tested for that and voila! It gives an immediate answer too. I did have to bring in a duffel bag of stuff a couple times after we went through all the samples in the kit, so we were testing home made stuff, like some combos were bad, but the individual ingredients were ok, I can eat regular cheese, but not melted.

It's a journey, but well worth it for our sweet children!!!