9 replies to this topic

[lockerbear]

Hi everyone!

I'm just wondering if anyone has experience here with intolerance tests? I'm having trouble with my leaky gut which is making me intolerant to many foods and I am rotating and keeping a food diary, but I am still getting worse. I recently got a meridian stress test which tested for food sensitivities and it showed I was sensitive to all grains (including ones i haven't eaten) and it said I was fine with several things I swear I'm intolerant to like peanuts, dairy and bananas. I'm really confused! I'm scared my leaky gut will never heal because I can't tell what I'm intolerant to and I keep getting mixed info from everywhere!... The only tests for intolerances I have found in Australia are an elisa test that costs $800 and a hair test which I am not sure will be accurate. If anyone can help me with intolerance tests they've tried or recommend some in Australia or even internationally I would really appreciate it!

[mushroom]

I'm sorry, can't help. My intolerance testing was good old trial and error. I tried it and if I didn't tolerate it it was an error

[lockerbear]

Lol no worries! I was doing the whole trial and error thing at first and I was healing pretty well! Then my gut just randomly went out of control and hasn't really improved since it's probably something else going on, but I'm still very worried that my intolerances will keep me from healing if I solve it

[Juliebove]

I have had both the blood and hair tests done. Daughter and I both loved the hair test! Caught things that the blood test didn't test for. Like herbs.

[burdee]

Hi everyone!

I'm just wondering if anyone has experience here with intolerance tests? I'm having trouble with my leaky gut which is making me intolerant to many foods and I am rotating and keeping a food diary, but I am still getting worse. I recently got a meridian stress test which tested for food sensitivities and it showed I was sensitive to all grains (including ones i haven't eaten) and it said I was fine with several things I swear I'm intolerant to like peanuts, dairy and bananas. I'm really confused! I'm scared my leaky gut will never heal because I can't tell what I'm intolerant to and I keep getting mixed info from everywhere!... The only tests for intolerances I have found in Australia are an elisa test that costs $800 and a hair test which I am not sure will be accurate. If anyone can help me with intolerance tests they've tried or recommend some in Australia or even internationally I would really appreciate it!

I'm not in Australia. However, I have had 3 different panels of the ELISA test. The first (100 commonly eaten foods) found my cane sugar and egg intolerances (IgG reactions). I still had symptoms. So I took the vegan panel, but had no significant reactions. So I took the herb/spice panel and discovered I reacted strongly to vanilla and nutmegs. I'm soooo glad I used ELISA. My intolerances (IgG and IgA reactions) are all ingredients in baked goods and processed foods. I would have never guessed all those or even been able to isolate all those with elimination tests. Yes, I had to pay outa pocket, because my HMO didn't cover those tests. However, i consider those test results well worth the money, because that shortened my journey to health. I aIso had to endure 4 years of gut bug infections (8 total but not all at once) before I found an NP who tested me for hypothyroidism, which explained my other symptoms.

[lockerbear]

Thanks a lot guys! I think I might try the hair test i would prefer the elisa but iit's a bit too expensive for me and the cheaper ones i find don't cover enough food. Hopefully it will work and I'll be able to start healing soon!

[strkngfang]

The hair test is a good one, so I've heard, I didn't have it. I had the ELISA 96 food panel done and it showed quite a bit. I've been able to add some of it back in slowly, but also had to avoid some things that were previously okay. The research shows that the reliability of these tests isn't very good and the only true way to know is an elimination diet. Eat only whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and meats for a few weeks and then add one other food item at a time and keep track of your reactions. The things I've learned about intolerance tests are they are always changing. If you tested every month, you would get different results, depending on what you've eaten. I have a celiac friend who has been gluten free for over a year, retested and gluten showed up as okay, but only because there had been none in her system for so long. I'm not knocking the testing, I've had some done as well, but really the only true way is to test each food yourself and see what happens. Best of luck to you.

[kareng]

I have never seen any scientific evidence that hair testing works. Before you spend your money, you might want to see if they are legit. Remember, a website trying to sell you something, in this case a " test", is not going to have objective scientific evidence. Same with these stool testing places that refuse to let their methods be peer reviewed.

[medaevalmom]

I am writing from Canada, so can`t help on Specifics like testing in your country...but I have a suggestion.
Have you looked into or considered other causes for your trouble? My husband was fine one day, down 30 lbs and weak and had diarrhea the next.. then fine again for a while and ... repeat. Everything he ate or didn`t eat seemed to give him trouble. After much testing the dr`s found a bacterial infection called H plylori. As soon as it was treated he started to feel like his old self.

I am just sugessting, food intolerance may be a SYMPTOM of an underlying issue. have you been tested for bacterial infection, viral infection, parasites, or other possible causes?

In my case, the first thing we checked was to make sure i didn`t get hubby`s bacteria, when that came back neg... we began to follow the food intolerance trail.

[foam]

Hello, I'm also in Australia and been waiting a while to see an allergy/immune specialist for testing, I finally have my first appointment in 10 days but I've been not well for around 20 years so I'm looking forward to that. I've been doing a lot of research on the testing and as far as I know the immunocap test costs $350 with no rebates and you can also have a RAST test done through your local pathology for any 4 chosen allergens for $90 after rebate? I believe. The immunocap test is the one l'll be going for since it's a IgE antibody test against 100 things and at $350 that's a better deal, my IgE levels are very high (40 times over the limit) , I'm sure I'm naturally very sensitive to allergins and technically atopic but I also seem to have tons and tons of food allergies, I'm thinking the major problem is milk protein and grains but at the same time I went 7 years strictly eating no dairy and still was having a constant reaction to something at that time so there are multiple problems. The immune level test (IgA, IgG, IgM, IgE) is free and if you haven't had that maybe you can put that on your list of things to test. I came up fine on most of those, the IgG level was slightly high but the IgE was the one that got my doctors excited since they finally found something that was far enough out of whack to cause my other weird symptoms.

I've also had a couple of parasite antibody tests which are a blood test and also free, there's many parasite antibody tests your doctor can have done free of charge, I feel it was certainly worth doing the helicobacter test since that causes a lot of allergy problems but I didn't have it. in the meantime I'm taking fairly heavy doses of anti parasite drugs to rule a few more things out. I've been on the antifungal diflucan which helped but I didn't still get my gut flora rebalanced although my digestion is greatly improved!. I'm also taking the anti histamine Zyrtec which as all but stopped any stomach pain I had on eating foods. The bad thing is that it's let me eat almost anything I normally have problems with and only going to the toilet once a day instead of 5 , great for gaining weight, but not at all not good for lowering my IgE levels.

I'm probably going to have to go on a really serious elimination diet at some stage where I only eat one thing and supplemented with amino acids but first I want to have that immunocap test. I've eaten whole foods only for months and not seen any real improvements, well only if I go almost 100% protein free, then I do improve, but that in the long term just makes things worse.

Here is a web page regarding some of the costs in Australia http://www.allergydr.com.au/cost

And a little more info on the standard immunocap test here http://www.phadia.co...ImmunoCAP-ISAC/

You can also read this

http://www.phadia.com/Global/Corporate%20Allergy/Files/DfU/Assay%20Kit%20IgE/DfU-ImmunoCAP-ISAC-20-01-02-3-RUO.pdf

They can do hundreds more allergens than the standard test has but I'm not sure if those are all available in the Australian labs, this is the test that to me makes sense because it's a numbers game and real numbers and real antibodies get me more excited than degrees of rashes on my skin

good luck!