Which Lab, Which Tests For Other Food Intolerances?

[JamiD]

Hi all

I'm only asymptomatic when my diet is limited to home prepared meat, green vegetables, and fruit. I really want to be able to add something else that's convenient to grab and go, but haven't been able to figure out what I can handle.

I would rather do a saliva test ie the Food Panel IGA thru Immunoscienceslab, but I don't know if that will tell me what I can or can't digest.

Enterolab only checks for a few things ie casein, soy, egg, yeast, and corn.

Any recommendations?

Thanks,

Jami

[blueeyedmanda]

I know my hospital uses AML/Mayo Medical labs for our allergy testing. I used to work in the lab for quite a few years.

[burdee]

My naturopath used ELISA (blood) IgG mediated delayed and IgE mediate immediate reaction allergy blood test to diagnose my egg and cane sugar allergies. He sent that specimum to USBioTek Labs, which I highly recommend, because they have good quality control, which eliminates results that indicate you have many allergies to foods you never eat. I also tested for gluten, casein, egg, yeast and soy through Enterolab which uses stool samples to diagnose IgA mediated (delayed reaction) allergies.

I do NOT recommend using skin prick tests for food allergies. I'm not familiar with saliva tests. I didn't know saliva revealed IgG reactions. I know IgA antibodies don't survive long outside the intestines. I thought IgG antibodies were only in the blood. What allergen indicators do saliva tests show?

BURDEE

[mftnchn]

Its been a long time since I read and reviewed all of this stuff. My understanding though is that the the IgA mediated response works for food allergies but may show nothing for food intolerances. I am using food intolerance in the sense that by only eating the food once in 4 days or more as you discover your level of tolerance, you can continue to eat the food to some degree.

Ultimately the food trial and challenge is the most accurate test of all.

[JamiD]

I thought IgG antibodies were only in the blood. What allergen indicators do saliva tests show?

BURDEE

Here's the link to the IgG testing. I may have it wrong and it may be a blood test.

Open Original Shared Link

I seem to have problems with eggs, corn, rice, peanuts, soy, and night shades. From what I read on another thread, they all have lectin? I thought the nightshades was the food group that had lectin. Do almonds have lectin?

[Clark Bent as Stupor-Man]

Here's the link to the IgG testing. I may have it wrong and it may be a blood test.

Open Original Shared Link

I seem to have problems with eggs, corn, rice, peanuts, soy, and night shades. From what I read on another thread, they all have lectin? I thought the nightshades was the food group that had lectin. Do almonds have lectin?

I think you're right on the Immunoscience testing that it uses saliva... I'm almost positive it was a saliva test (referred to as a SIGA test if I'm not mistaken) that I had done through them for soy, egg, dairy, and gluten...

if you're going to do a food intolerance test for a large amount of foods, I got testing done with Immunolabs (based in Florida) and think the testing was fairly accurate as far as these tests go... they give a range of +1 (least) to +4 for levels of antibodies for foods you test reactive to... if you call them, you can ask them to give you doctors in your area that work with them and then get one of those doctors to do the blood-draw and authorize the test for you to get insurance to cover it... otherwise, it could cost as much as 900 dollars, but I was able to get mine fully covered through a doctor in my area I got from them...

I got the test done to see if there was maybe one or 2 foods in my modified diet that I was badly reacting to without knowing... I had been avoiding most of the 115 foods for months prior to the test and challenged many of them (except for gluten, dairy, soy, etc.) for a few weeks before getting my blood drawn... I ended up reactive to 32 of the 115 foods including 7 of the 8 foods I had been purposely avoiding for 9+ months due to previous positive lab tests (gluten, cow's milk, egg, etc.)... my 2 strongest reactions were to brewer's and baker's yeasts, which further gave me confidence in the test results as my 2 previous candida tests came up in the positive range...

but the thing is, as more intolerances and problems with more foods pop up, it becomes less likely that simply having food allergies/intolerances is your main problem, but more a side effect of what is going on systemically inside of you... it could be any number of things going on, which would cause or contribute to these reactions... candida, parasites, lyme disease, heavy metals, etc.

I don't know how far you are into a gluten-free diet, if you're recently started it, then your body may simply be adjusting to it and reacting moreso than usual.. also, if you seem to do better on a diet with meats, veggies, and fruits, then candida may be a possibility... it could simply be that your body is feeling better on a diet like this due to avoiding processed foods and I don't know your symptoms, but aside from sugar in the fruits, this is the type of diet that a person would benefit from if they had a candida problem... you could consider finding a good nutritionist (if you don't have one) and looking into candida if you haven't already done so...

as far as I remember about lectins, the 4 groups are grains (I think most grains including rice and corn but not seeds like amaranth), legumes, dairy, and nightshades... after I got my food intolerance test results back, I did some research in comparison with my results and lectins had a very strong correlation... I don't think almonds have lectins (though almonds were one of my strongest rxns)... but as far as lectins go, at least in my case, I think it was more a case of me having a leaky gut and reacting to certain foods that are more likely to cause problems with their proteins crossing the IBB... avoiding these foods, while making me feel better to an extent, was not addressing the root cause... in my case, I found out recently I have lyme disease and that in conjunction with candida (and possibly heavy metals which I haven't yet looked into) are the main culprits behind my food reactions

I probably over-answered your questions but just wanted to give you some things to consider as your path through testing and results so far were very similar to what I went through...

[JamiD]

I think you're right on the Immunoscience testing that it uses saliva... I'm almost positive it was a saliva test (referred to as a SIGA test if I'm not mistaken) that I had done through them for soy, egg, dairy, and gluten...

if you're going to do a food intolerance test for a large amount of foods, I got testing done with Immunolabs (based in Florida) and think the testing was fairly accurate as far as these tests go... they give a range of +1 (least) to +4 for levels of antibodies for foods you test reactive to... if you call them, you can ask them to give you doctors in your area that work with them and then get one of those doctors to do the blood-draw and authorize the test for you to get insurance to cover it... otherwise, it could cost as much as 900 dollars, but I was able to get mine fully covered through a doctor in my area I got from them...

I got the test done to see if there was maybe one or 2 foods in my modified diet that I was badly reacting to without knowing... I had been avoiding most of the 115 foods for months prior to the test and challenged many of them (except for gluten, dairy, soy, etc.) for a few weeks before getting my blood drawn... I ended up reactive to 32 of the 115 foods including 7 of the 8 foods I had been purposely avoiding for 9+ months due to previous positive lab tests (gluten, cow's milk, egg, etc.)... my 2 strongest reactions were to brewer's and baker's yeasts, which further gave me confidence in the test results as my 2 previous candida tests came up in the positive range...

but the thing is, as more intolerances and problems with more foods pop up, it becomes less likely that simply having food allergies/intolerances is your main problem, but more a side effect of what is going on systemically inside of you... it could be any number of things going on, which would cause or contribute to these reactions... candida, parasites, lyme disease, heavy metals, etc.

I don't know how far you are into a gluten-free diet, if you're recently started it, then your body may simply be adjusting to it and reacting moreso than usual.. also, if you seem to do better on a diet with meats, veggies, and fruits, then candida may be a possibility... it could simply be that your body is feeling better on a diet like this due to avoiding processed foods and I don't know your symptoms, but aside from sugar in the fruits, this is the type of diet that a person would benefit from if they had a candida problem... you could consider finding a good nutritionist (if you don't have one) and looking into candida if you haven't already done so...

as far as I remember about lectins, the 4 groups are grains (I think most grains including rice and corn but not seeds like amaranth), legumes, dairy, and nightshades... after I got my food intolerance test results back, I did some research in comparison with my results and lectins had a very strong correlation... I don't think almonds have lectins (though almonds were one of my strongest rxns)... but as far as lectins go, at least in my case, I think it was more a case of me having a leaky gut and reacting to certain foods that are more likely to cause problems with their proteins crossing the IBB... avoiding these foods, while making me feel better to an extent, was not addressing the root cause... in my case, I found out recently I have lyme disease and that in conjunction with candida (and possibly heavy metals which I haven't yet looked into) are the main culprits behind my food reactions

I probably over-answered your questions but just wanted to give you some things to consider as your path through testing and results so far were very similar to what I went through...

Thanks for all the info. I will check out that lab for a local MD. I did just make an appt w/ a local holistic MD and will call another who has open call in the mornings. But I also want to see if they're on that labs list.