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More responses..........
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After years and years not getting better (even being gluten free) I
finally
took the elisa/rast food allergy tests. They are expensive and not covered
by most health plans. The list of things I am allergic to is so long I
needed to put in onto a spreadsheet. I spent 1 year following the list
religiously , even rotating my foods per Nicolette Dumke's great book "5
years without food". I did get results. Much improvement. But frankly no
cure. Avoiding the allergic food triggers still didn't address many other
on going complaints. If you've got the money, then do it. You may be
surprised to learn that your favorite foods are the ones you are sensitive
to. It can reduce the symptom load so (like me) you can look at other
influences. Be aware that most MD's don't think they are credible. Also
ask if your health car provider intends to retest you at intervals.
====================
The skin testing is definitely a waste (I did that), and the blood testing
some folks think is ok and
others say its a waste too. What I have read is that the cytotoxic and
RAST and
ELIZA tests are not very accurate because they use the foods they test
with in a
whole state, generally, whereas the body (digestive system, etc) changes
the foods
and breaks them into other components, and it may in fact be these
components to
which one is allergic. This is an explanation for why the allergies
sometimes take
a long time to show from the point of ingestion to the point of having
symptoms.
One book that was helpful to me was "Hidden Food Allergies: Finding The
Foods ..."
by Stephen Astor, MD. It is short and to the point. Written in about 1995,
I think.
He recommends elimination-challenge as the only really good way to tell
what you're
allergic to.
====================
When I tested positive for apples during allergy testing the doctor told
me
that I might not react to apples if they were cooked. Apparently cooking
changes the chemical composition including what you might be reacting too.
Seems to work for me.
====================
Some researchers believe that one
reason allergies are so common lately is that we don't give the immune
system enough to do to keep it regulated: and eating live bacteria keeps
it
occupied. Most people in most times ate some sort of 'pickle' with each
meal (kimchee, kefir, saurkraut, miso) which provided enzymes and
digestive
bacteria/yeast. Today's 'pickles' have no live bacteria and don't do the
same thing. A lot of people swear by kefir, a probiotic with each meal is
good too.
====================
My nutritionist put me on an elimination diet 2 years ago. She gave me a
list of foods that were ok to eat. At the end of 4 weeks, you add one food
back into your diet. Eat lots, at least 3 times a day, of that food for 4
days. If you don't react, HURRAH, you can safely return the food to your
diet. However, if you react, headach, muscle spasms, stomach ache, rash,
red cheeks, hot flashes, etc, add the food to your no-no list. THEN, you
need to return to the elimination diet plus added foods for 5 more days
until your body has cleansed itself of the offending food. Then you try
the next food. It really doesn't matter the order which you add the foods.
You may want to try the ones you miss the most. I don't do well with the
rotation diet. It has gotten very confusing for me. So, I eat the foods on
my list but don't eat the same food every day. The idea here is if you are
ok with chicken, you can give yourself chicken allergy by eatting the food
every day.
====================
In regard to adding foods in after an elimination, it is a good idea to
try the food in its pure form first thing in the morning on an empty
stomach (in a small amount at first... so you won't get violently ill if
you are extremely allergic to it).
So a pure form of milk would be plain milk, not butter or yogurt, etc. So
you might start with a 1/4 cup.... wait 20 minutes... if no reaction then
drink 1/2 cup and wait an hour. If you have no reaction within an hour,
then drink a whole glass. If no reaction by lunch time, then include milk
in your lunch meal and again in your dinner meal. The next day do not add
any new foods as you could get a delayed reaction then (diarrhea,
constipation, etc.) and you should wait until any reaction you have goes
away before testing another new food.. You keep eating the safe foods
(free of the allergens you are eliminating.
====================
Eliminate a food GROUP for about a week. If you cringe at the thought,
that's a good indication that you ARE allergic. On the day, on an empty
stomach, take your pulse and record it. Take , for example, a glass of
milk if you are testing the cow juice familly. 30, 60, 90 min later
take you pulse. An rise of over ten per cent indicates an allergy. The
higher the rise, the more intense the allergy. Go thru your suspected
foods. You must have the week respite from the food for a week in order
to get an accurate reading. This was described in DR COCOA'S PULSE TEST
FOR ALLERGY TESTING, still available in paperback and accurate.
====================
look at the list of salicylate containing foods which are eliminated on
the Feingold diet: www.feingold.org . You might also benefit from the book
Food Chemical Sensitivity by Robert Buist, as he lists the food families
for you, including histamine lists, which is high in some foods like
cheeses, yeasts, tuna. You will probably be able to find these lists if
you do a search for migraine headaches sites, as they tend to be a trigger
for that. - usually you try to not have foods from the same family close
together - the longer between the better (e.g not more than twice a week)
and only carefully reintroduce one at a time and wait days for delayed
reactions and cumulative reactions
====================
The best method to determine food allergies is the elimination diet.
You know what foods bother you and the effect they have on your body.

Some foods give me migraines, some red cheeks & hot flashed, some
diarreah, some fatigue & fuzzy thinking - to name a few.

I have had several blood tests. The results were 70% accurate. The
one test showed soy and corn were fine for me. They both give me
headaches. Corn gives me killer migraines for days. Had I relyed only
on the blood test, I would have been frustrated not knowing why I was
still having the bad headaches.

They did a blood test on my son when he was 3 years old. These tests
are important for little kids because they can't tell you what bothers
them and how it bothers them. I have not done an elimination diet for
my now 5 year old son because he still wouldn't really be able to tell
me how the food effects him. I closely watch his behavior when I am
trying to determine if a food bothers him.

One of the reasons the blood test has such a low accuracy rate is
because it shows positive for foods that you immediately react. I
react to milk protein immediately. I get congested and leg cramps
within hours of ingesting. I can eat soy as ingredients for several
days. If I drink a glass of soy milk for several days, I get the HA.
My body has to build up the soy protein before it gets mad about it.
====================
I wanted the test to satisfy my curiosity. My Doctor only agreed to it
after I completed the elimination diet. If you do the blood test
before the elimination diet, you could unconsciously rely too much on
the blood test. Even after I knew corn gave me a migraine, I tried it
after the blood test because the blood test SAID I could eat it. Not a
good choice on my part.

Also, the blood test said I have a problem with apples and I don't.
The elimination diet takes a long time and is a pain. You
will be glad you went to the trouble of the elimination diet even
though it seems intimidating now.
====================
reactions can be caused by amines in general (not
histamine in particular) in different foods. For nuts: very low-chestnut,
horse chestnut, pine nut, pistachio; low-almond, cashew, coconut,
macadamia; moderate-brazil, hazelnut; high-pecan, walnut; very
high-butternut. I'm hoping you know
that eating nuts can result in a very severe form of allergic response,
anaphylactic shock, and that you are prepared, maybe with an Epi-pen, just
in case. You could still be very allergic to chestnuts
====================
Shortly after being diagnosed with Celiac Disease, I asked the doctor
about a food allergy test. He said that unless I think I have a severe
allergy (i.e. nuts), then he doesn't believe it would be beneficial. I
should learn what foods I need to remove on my own, not on the basis of a
test. It made sense to me. If they find that you have a really serious
allergy, such as nuts, they may opt not to test other allergies and tell
you to avoid them anyways. For instance, my sister is allergic to nuts.
Since they know she could go into anaphyactic shock if she is injected,
they chose not to test for seeds (poppy and sesame), or other nuts, and
just assume she is severely allergic.

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