A Note About Allergy Testing

    I just want to post a quick note about what kind of allergy testing picked up the food sensitivities for us.

    When Brittany was in grade school, I suspected seasonal allergies and took her to an allergist, where they did the scratch test that most people associate with allergy testing.  It picked up a few minor things, including "maybe a slight reaction to dairy."

    Later, when I asked the doctor I referred to in my first post about food allergies, he said nothing to me about being able to do bloodwork to detect food allergies.  It was at least a year later that a doctor who oversaw a sleep study we had done answered my question about allergies by saying, "Oh yes, I can order the bloodwork for that."  I was FLOORED that blood testing was readily available and widely recognized by the medical community, but the doctor I asked about food allergies at the beginning of the migraine saga gave me a dirty look and didn't even offer blood testing as an available option.  I didn't ask for that specifically because I didn't know.  So, the sleep study doctor, of all people, ordered bloodwork.  At this time I was most uptight about wheat and was positive that the tests would come back screaming that wheat was bad for her.  When we got the "normal" results back, I was floored and chalked my intuition up to being a paranoid mother who was grasping at any possible explanation I could get.

    The DO who brought up food allergies practices in an office where they do electrodermal testing.  I had never heard of it before.  When we went into the office where the lady performed the tests, I had to sign a waiver stating that I understood that this type of testing is not recognized by the scientific community.  At this point I got a little nervous and asked her how this compared with scratch testing and bloodwork.  She told me that in the 15 years she had been doing this, her experience had been that it picked up what those tests did and more, because it detects not only allergies but SENSITIVITIES.

    She had Brittany hold a bar with a moistened piece of gauze on it, which was attached to a computerized program that measured the wavelengths in her body.  Then it compared it to a list of foods that were already entered in with their wavelengths to show what was incompatible.  I felt very vindicated when the machine went nuts on wheat and dairy, and surprised at the similar reaction to corn, which I never would have thought of.

    Some of the things it showed were things that I thought, "Seriously?"--like raspberries, for example.  After three weeks of eliminating everything and then reintroducing to see what effect the foods had on her (there is about a 15% error margin, and some food reactions might be minor enough that the person might not need to cut them out completely; just limit to a "once in a while" indulgence), we discovered that the results were right on.  Raspberries, for example--or anything in that family--give her an instant splitting headache.

    So, recognized by the scientific community or not, that is where we got our answers.  Alternative medicine is how she has started to feel better.  I'm a fan.