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19

Testing For Allergies

S

ome of you may be tempted to skip the “trial and error” approach
and go for laboratory testing. That’s bound to be quick, easy and
accurate, right?
Unfortunately, no. There are no good blood tests that reach even
50% validity.
Even the food challenge test—eating the food to see what
happens—is not a good test method, unless carried out exactly as I describe
it here. There are often false negatives (a bad food is missed). So the idea
that a food challenge test should be the real benchmark of food reactions
doesn’t entirely hold true.
But when we come to laboratory tests, the results are even more
unreliable. Let me lay it out for you.
The two main test routes are:

• conventional allergists and their immunological approach


• alternative lab testing methods.
  Conventional testing may be appropriate for you, if you have
  one of the very narrow range of allergies which can be detected this way:
  mainly these are Type I hypersensitivities (for skin scratch and antibody
  tests) or Type III and IV hypersensitivities (for patch testing). For reasons
  of completeness, an overview of these methods is included here. But the
  essential drawback of this route is that, at the end of the day, no matter
  what is found, you are going to get the same basic treatments: drugs and
  medicines. The conventional allergist has little else to offer you and, as they
  pompously pronounce in their own position papers, do not sympathize
  with the kind of self-help philosophy expounded in this book.
  If you are seeking something more than just pharmacology, you
  may feel that taking this old-fashioned route is rather a waste of time. It’s
  up to you. You could of course try a combination approach and the next
  few sections might help you understand better what is being offered.