Need Some Desperate Help - Blood And Skin Tests Conflict

[blondebombshell]

went to an allergist yesterday and they did a skin test on me which showed i was allergic to melons, bananas, and apples. (all of which i love, lol). when i had blood work done it came back that i had a wheat and egg allergy but it wasn't showing up in the skin test.

why? now what!!!!

[ravenwoodglass]

Allergy reactions are different from intolerance reactions. And we of course can have both together but we can also have one but not the other. In other words you can be celiac (gluten intolerance) and not have an allergy to wheat. It is a different mechanism that comes into play. Allergies are histamine reactions where intolerances are more auto immune mediated. Allergies also show up right away, hence the skin prick tests, whereas an intolerance reaction can take days to build up enough to be felt. In the early stages of celiac many of us will have a couple of days of feeling okay after a bout of D for this reason. The D clears the offending substance out of the system and it takes a couple days of consuming for another reaction to occur. This is also why when doing an elimination diet you need to add the suspect food in for 5 days before you can be sure whether or not you react.

[blondebombshell]

i had an endoscopy and it came back negative for celiac and he said i had gastritis and a hiatal hernia but that my intestines looked fine.

great, right?

now i have no idea what to do.

[Ursa Major]

Well, you have three options now. 1) Keep eating gluten, getting sicker, until your villi are flat and your biopsy comes out positive. 2) Stop eating gluten and feel better, and the heck with tests and doctors. 3) Do Open Original Shared Link testing, so you will know for sure if gluten is your problem, and to see what your genes are.

Have you tried the gluten-free diet, and did it make you feel better? The diet really is the best test of them all.

[blondebombshell]

yes i feel less bloated when i do not eat gluten

[sneezydiva]

went to an allergist yesterday and they did a skin test on me which showed i was allergic to melons, bananas, and apples. (all of which i love, lol). when i had blood work done it came back that i had a wheat and egg allergy but it wasn't showing up in the skin test.

why? now what!!!!

Do you know exactly what kind of blood test it was? The skin test shows immediate allergic reactions, while depending on the test, the blood test could have been for immediate or delayed allergic reactions. If it was for delayed, it would explain the difference in the two types of testing.

Also, melons and bananas cross-react with ragweed and apple with birch pollen. If you are highly allergic to ragweed or birch, it is possible it is a cross-reaction.

[mftnchn]

My allergist has many years of experience, and has food and chemical sensitivities himself--so has been great. He always has told me that skin and blood testing are not always reliable. And when he does skin testing for food it is different than for inhalents, and not only looks for skin reactions but for any symptoms that accompany it. The assistants that do the testing always tell me that the symptoms that show up this way, may not be the same symptoms that I would get when I eat the food.

My allergist always emphasizes that ultimately the best test and only accurate test is elimination diet.

So I'd look at these tests as guidelines, and then do some dietary elimination to confirm or disconfirm.