Elisa

[holdthegluten]

Has anyone ordered an ELISA panel to test for allergies? How do you do it? Is it expensive? What foods do they test for? Im looking for a test that will check for a bunch of different allergies, so i dont have to keep guessing about whats affecting me.

[Rachel--24]

I did the ELISA test. I did it through Great Smokies..(they have since changed name..not sure what they go by now).

The test was for over 100 foods....plus I had a seperate spice panel.

The cost was $350.

The test revealed nothing to me...it was not helpful at all.

Others may have had better results...I can only speak for myself in saying that of ALL the testing I did over 4 years....this was probably the least useful.

This is not a "proven" method of testing...lots of false negatives and false positives.

I always say that an elimination diet is far more reliable than this type of testing.

[AndreaB]

I had my whole family (except the baby) tested.

With ours, we eliminated what showed positive and then went through the rounds of adding one food at a time back in.

Most were accurate, some were not, others were a little problem that had been negative.

It gives you something to start out with as far as an elimination diet if you want the quick way, but as Rachel said you can just do the elimination diet.

We went through our doctor who does these through US BioTek. For the full panel IgG and IgE it was $550 I believe. IgG alone was less.

[Murph]

I did one thru York Labs a couple yrs ago (I think they've changed their name since) and it was VERY helpful. Tested ~116 foods and came back w/ yeast. It was what first made me realize I had intestinal candida. I'd been gluten-free 10 months at the time, dairy-free maybe 6 mo, sugar-free for a few and still felt horrible most of the time. The anti-candida diet did a LOT for me.

[Rachel--24]

The anti-candida diet did a LOT for me.

Same here. The candida diet put me in the right direction...I improved from this diet more than anything I'd done throughout my entire illness. I think most people with food intolerance caused by leaky gut would benefit from not feeding the candida.

I have pretty bad candida.....very high antibodies towards pathogenic yeast, leaky gut, many many food intolerances.....but my ELISA came back almost normal.

I had NO high reactivities at all...yeast did not show up....in fact NO foods showed up positive except a VL (very low) for banana. I aslo had a handful of VL's on the spice panel...that was it.

Thats why I dont have alot of faith in the test. I've had different types of testing since then..mostly alternative but leaky gut is definately an issue, candida is a BIG issue and the food intolerances and environmental sensitivities are through the roof.

I had been off the candida diet for almost 2 years now...but recently went back on it now that I've been diagnosed and am going through treatment.

I had a hard time just treating candida since I knew it wasnt solving the underlying issue....thats why I went off the diet when I did.

Reactions can also be caused by chemicals in food, mold, salicylates, pesticides, additives, etc. In these cases the ELISA wont show a problem. If a person reacts to all grains but doesnt test positive for them....it could be something else that they are reacting to...and not the food itself. For example all grains are moldy and if you are extremely sensitive to mold...you might react to grains.

This is why its always best to pay attention to your body...use the tests as a tool....but dont rely on them completely.