96-Food Allergy Test

[Victoria6102]

My naturopath recommended I get an allergy test that tests for 96 foods. Has anyone taken this test, and what are your thoughts?! Will the wheat panel on the test show up negative because I am eating gluten free?

[kareng]

Because Celiac isn't an allergy to wheat, it could show you as not allergic to it. Doesn't mean you can eat wheat.

[trents]

Is this a blood draw allergy test or a skin prick test?

No, the fact that you are eating gluten free will not change the test results as in the testing the various allergens will be introduced either into your blood or your subcutaneous tissues.

[Skylark]

Those are expensive and I don't think they are reliable enough to pay for out-of-pocket. A lot of naturopaths charge outrageous prices for those panels, taking a cut of your money themselves. I've seen posts from board members who got charged anywhere from $500-$2000 for a $250 test.

Doing an elimination diet is a much more reliable way to find out what your food issues are. The blood tests are prone to false positives (you aren't injecting the food!), and what if your problem foods aren't among the 96 tested? For example, right now I'm suspecting I'm sensitive to either xanthan gum or tapioca. Neither are on most of the 96-food panel lists. I also have problems with MSG and you can only learn that through elimination.

[Victoria6102]

It costs less than $250. it's a test where I prick my finger and fill 5 little circles with blood, and send it in to a lab that will test for the 96 allergens. I believe I will be starting an elimination diet after the test, if nothing shows up.

[Skylark]

It costs less than $250. it's a test where I prick my finger and fill 5 little circles with blood, and send it in to a lab that will test for the 96 allergens. I believe I will be starting an elimination diet after the test, if nothing shows up.

Elimination is free. That's a fair price, though. It's good that your naturopath is not charging something crazy.

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out because it's super-helpful to hear your experiences.

[trents]

It costs less than $250. it's a test where I prick my finger and fill 5 little circles with blood, and send it in to a lab that will test for the 96 allergens. I believe I will be starting an elimination diet after the test, if nothing shows up.

Okay then, its the ELISA test. When you get the results, don't take it as absolute gospel. There are a number of problems with ELISA testing that can produce inaccurate, misleading results. You should do some research on this issue on the internet. What is really telltale in this regard is if you were to have your blood sample sent to several different labs. What you find is that the results from each lab can vary considerably. The other big issue withe ElISA testing is that the lab results often don't correlate well with what you actually experience in real life symptomatically. For instance, the ELISA test results may indicate you have a strong allergy to peanuts. But when you eat peanuts you suffer not ill effects. Or it may indicate that your are not allergic to soy but you know that every time you use soy you get a gut ache, diarrhea or nasal congestion. So with ELISA testing there can be and usually are some false positives and some false negatives.

Having said all that, there is value in ELISA testing. It's a place to start. It gives you things to look for and to challenge or test in your actual day to day eating habits. ELISA testing is more valuable if you can afford to have blood samples drawn and sent more than one lab so you have results from more than one source to compare and contrast.

[Victoria6102]

Very true! But hey it can't hurt (except the minor finger prick to get this test done and maybe save some time so I can feel better sooner I will let you know how it goes.

[Blue-eyed bandit]

I went to an allergist and was food tested and found out I had many allergies. Why don't u try going to an allergist and that way insurance would cover it?? If I did it without the allergist and sent in my blood to be tested like my chiropractor suggested it would have put me back 1k.

[Mom23boys]

Ask your naturopath if this is a true (ige) allergy test or if it is a sensitivity test. I just had something like you described done and am waiting for results. You are NOT going to have anaphylaxis (bad allergic reaction) to anything that scores high on this test. These show the more subtle aches and pains that you only notice when you eliminate after the testing.

[quincy]

Ask your naturopath if this is a true (ige) allergy test or if it is a sensitivity test. I just had something like you described done and am waiting for results. You are NOT going to have anaphylaxis (bad allergic reaction) to anything that scores high on this test. These show the more subtle aches and pains that you only notice when you eliminate after the testing.

I just had the ELISA test for 90 foods. It showed "servere" for dairy, casein, and peanuts and moderate for egg yolk. Its a good tool I think for those with ongoing IBS because it may indicate that there are other intolerances beside gluten. It cost me $195 dollars through my doctor (functional medicine).

[1974girl]

My daughter had the back prick test. The allergist told me that the RAST blood test is so unreliable that they don't even do those anymore. So we did the back thing. She has EE (along with celiacs) It is where her esophagus has too many eosinophils. It can cause swallowing problems, food stuck, etc. However, she has no symptoms and they just found on on the way down for the celiac biopsy. I only say that because she showed allergic to a ton of stuff. An elimination diet would have done nothing for us since she has no symptoms. Only at stage 4 when she couldn't swallow would we have known. So...if you have something like that, then by all means, get the back prick test. Even then, they are not 100% sure. It is more 50/50. But the doctor told me if it is negative, then it is usually negative. So you can rule out some things. And btw- my celiac daughter showed no allergic reaction to wheat since it isn't a true allergy.

[mommida]

My daughter has Celiac and Eosinophilic Esophagitus too.

She hadd "allergy" testing done too. (back prick testing and delayed food testing, waiting on a more recent blood test results) She is not truely "allergic" to anything.

The only thing that helped was an elimination diet. In the case of eosinophils a reaction can last for 12 days, so you must keep a food journal.

If you can easily afford the testing, do it. It may be helpful to find some allergies to get you healthy quicker, but you may not be suffering from true "allergies". An elimination diet might be how you can help yourself if the tests aren't helpful.

[StephanieL]

My daughter had the back prick test. The allergist told me that the RAST blood test is so unreliable that they don't even do those anymore.

That is absolutely not true.

An allergy test shouldn't be done unless you see a reaction. Testing (skin prick OR RAST) are about 50% accurate for a positive and one 90% accurate for a negative. RAST testing will not tell you how server an allergy is, nothing will.

[1974girl]

That is absolutely not true.

An allergy test shouldn't be done unless you see a reaction. Testing (skin prick OR RAST) are about 50% accurate for a positive and one 90% accurate for a negative. RAST testing will not tell you how server an allergy is, nothing will.

Well, she doesn't show an outward reaction but obviously something is reacting in her espophagus to have grade 3 EE. I was sent to an allergy doctor by the GI. The allergist told me that she only will do back testing for that (EE). Again...she has NO reactions (except one to nuts once over a year ago) She showed positive for all beans, peas, apples, nuts, cantaloupe, oats, and rice. They told me to ignore the rice since we were gluten free and so many things need rice. She was grade 3 out of 4. They were suprised food was not getting stuck. AGAIN...no reaction. I did have another doctor (pediatrician) do the RAST test despite what the allergist said (just in case which now my insurance is fighting and saying it was unnecessary) They show different things. RAST shows peanuts and BACK shows only tree nuts (and not even all of those). RAST showed milk and BACK did not. RAST showed SOY. Back did not. So one of them is wrong! I am going with what the allergist said...back is more reliable. I can't cut out food all together.

The problem I have is that I will never know if she is still having issues unless food gets stuck. So the elimination diet would do nothing unless I took something away and scoped her every time. (Which BTW-one doctor wanted to do it every 3 months!) Her new GI doctor said she will only scope if there is a problem. Sorry this turned into an EE thing and not celiac!

[tom]

Scott linked to new article on this.

Open Original Shared Link

It starts skeptically but does balance it out later.

I did a 100something test years ago & while acknowledging that the results might be a little fuzzy, I thought it was worth it. Brought yeast to my attn for the first time.

[StephanieL]

EE is not something allergy testing would find. So your daughter is reacting and you can't see it because EE isn't IgE mediated so that makes totally sense.

Also, most Dr. want to scope often for EE to see if there are sections going on. That is common practice and real they only reliable way (as of now) that EE can be looked at. I know many Mom's of EE kids and they are always getting scoped. I understand each parent makes those decisions.

[Mom23boys]

But the doctor told me if it is negative, then it is usually negative. So you can rule out some things.

Sooooooooooooo not true. My prick test showed everything negative. I have severe IgE reactions to both shellfish and milk.

[StephanieL]

A reaction always trumps test results but a positive SPT or RAST test is about 50% accurate and a negative is 90+% accurate. So negatives are usually pretty reliable except in that 5-8%.

[mommida]

Sorry this turned into an EE thing and not celiac!

Celiac and EE do have connections. We are starting to get statistics of patients with both Celiac and EE. Some EE patients may need to be gluten free.

I am going to dare to say we might have at least 10% EE peeps here. (Let's just say I found quicker answers herefrom our EE folks than searching out EE sites.)

[Victoria6102]

Ok I got my results in. It was higGh on all dairy-casein, whey, everything. Also on goats milk. Slightly high on a couple fruits but I'm allergic to fruit so avoid them anyway. I will try avoiding all dairy ( including products with "may contain traces of milk " statements"). My blood tests showed I'm anemic and low in B12, and VERY low in vitamin D. Will be taking supplements. Also may start eating organic.