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Forum -> Children's Health -> Allergies
Are all allergies real?
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 12:04 pm
Yes my title is intentionally inflammatory.
My cousin got her child tested for allergies using a blood test. He came back with a list of foods and plants that he is allergic to, including nuts.
However this child eats all those foods with zero problems at all.
My question is how do the bloodtests work?
Why would it show an allergy that’s not real? Are all the kids with nut allergies in school diagnosed with this kind of blood test or is it a real allergy?
If a kid ate nuts and had a reaction obviously he is allergic. But if a parent tested their baby and got results of multiple allergies and avoided those foods forever and told the school their child is allergic, isn’t that possibly a not real allergy?

I also know another child who was diagnosed with a nut allergy from a skin test and they only realized that his allergy was not real when he ate nuts mistakenly and nothing happened. It feels like such a waste of energy for a non real allergy.
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amother
Papaya


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 12:05 pm
Why was he tested if he never showed any reactions?
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lfab




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 12:16 pm
amother [ Papaya ] wrote:
Why was he tested if he never showed any reactions?


This. I don't understand why anyone would randomly test for allergies Rolling Eyes
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ra_mom




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 12:28 pm
Who said he has zero problems with these foods? His mom took him for testing for a reason. He could be having gastrointeatinal problems, rashes, migraines, or other symptoms that you don't know about.
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amother
Ecru


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 12:30 pm
Yes allergies are real but could present in different ways not all allergies are breaking out in hives or anaphylactic. An allergy could also give you runny nose an upset stomach digestive issues diarrhea. And those would be harder for a random person to realize. but could still was lots of pain and not okay. As a child I had food allergies and I remember once a doctor telling me I could go home and try something and when I eat it my whole nosestarted tingling and a lot of things happened that a random person might not realize what's happening internally to me. Another thing to note is that will allergies come with like a level of how allergic so something that you might just be a little bit allergic to might not be as bad as something that's a higher allergy.
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amother
Ecru


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 12:32 pm
Also one more point no one goes to an allergy doctor once gets a list of allergies and then is done someone who's allergic to different foods is constantly going to the doctor to check up and monitor just as any other health issues that you monitor. An allergy is immune reaction to something so your immune system is fighting something off that they think is bad and not realizing that it shouldn't be bad for you so as your immune system developed and changed so could your allergies.
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amother
Floralwhite


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 12:40 pm
ra_mom wrote:
Who said he has zero problems with these foods? His mom took him for testing for a reason. He could be having gastrointeatinal problems, rashes, migraines, or other symptoms that you don't know about.


Yup. I know a number of people who discovered as adults that foods they had been eating all their lives were actually hurting them in some way, they just had never pinpointed which foods had which effects on them. The testing nowadays has come a very long way, and it is quite accurate. They also inform you how severe each allergy is, so just stating the foods is not necessarily going to give you an idea of how he might react to each one. Having a mild allergy to a food could very well not produce any symptoms that a child would be aware enough to notice and describe. As an adult, someone could use that information to eliminate the food and then reintroduce it and see if anything of note happens. The allergist can also guide as to how each allergy should be treated and whether or not to eliminate it from the diet based on current research and the child's own history.
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amother
Floralwhite


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 12:48 pm
Oh yeah I just want to add. One of my kids was showing real signs of allergies so we took her for testing. She tested positive for a number of foods, most of which she had definitely reacted to in the past (hives, eczema, swelling of mouth). One food showed a moderate allergy, but she seemingly had never reacted to it. It's an extremely prevalent food. The allergist said we could safely continue to give it despite the allergy since we couldn't discern any reaction. Anyway, a short time later, we were working with the pediatrician to try to figure out why my dd was getting colds so often, with a cough that lingered on and on and often needed antibiotics. The doctor suggested eliminating that food from the child's diet- not realizing that she in fact had already been diagnosed with that allergy, even though she continued to eat it. We did follow that advice, and lo and behold my child "outgrew" her asthma and stopped getting bronchitis all the time. So yeah, there was definitely something to the allergy even though we had been sure she wasn't reacting in any way.
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amother
Puce


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 12:57 pm
My child stopped getting ear infections when I removed eggs from his diet. He actually had a tube insertion scheduled and the doctor was surprised when we came in for the pre-op visit and his ears were clear!

Now as an older child his stomach hurts when he eats eggs.
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newmommy22




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 1:00 pm
Allergy testing is known to cause lots of false positives...
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amother
Floralwhite


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 1:01 pm
newmommy22 wrote:
Allergy testing is known to cause lots of false positives...


This was true for the older generation of tests. The testing today is much more accurate.
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newmommy22




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 1:05 pm
My son's testing showed allergies to every single food he was tested for with the exception of 3-4 foods. We tested him for everything available. I was told it's inaccurate.
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amother
Orchid


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 1:55 pm
Yes allergies are real.
Allergies DOES NOT equal anaphylaxis.
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ra_mom




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 1:57 pm
newmommy22 wrote:
My son's testing showed allergies to every single food he was tested for with the exception of 3-4 foods. We tested him for everything available. I was told it's inaccurate.

Tests for babies are inaccurate.
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Mishmish




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 2:36 pm
Allergy tests are not diagnostic on their own. They are information that a specially trained allergist can use to assist in diagnosis & treatment. The false positive rate is 50-60%. Panel testing for food allergens is not recommended anymore for this reason. (However, an allergist may well have had reason to order those tests; we don’t know.)

Here is a link to a reliable source/patient education organization that discusses false positives. https://www.foodallergy.org/li.....tests

It is also possible for someone to test zero on the allergy tests and yet be anaphylactic to that food. The rate of this is much lower than the “false positive” rate.

Basically, while tons of progress has been made, we do not really understand how the immune system works in totality yet.
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seeker




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 4:36 pm
The blood test is not the most reliable, it's more used for screening so you know what to test for. First DD had a severe allergic reaction but we didn't know to what, so the blood test told us where to start. We followed up with skin test which confirmed what we already suspected. Second DD never had a reaction but we never have certain foods in the house so I wanted whatever clues I could get before sending her into the wide world. The only positives that came up were foods that she ate regularly with no issue so the allergist said not to worry about them.
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cnc




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 4:42 pm
The responses are so interesting.
My pediatrician claimed that allergy testing is very inaccurate. (This was around 7 years ago. I wonder if things have changed so much since then...)
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amother
Seagreen


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 4:59 pm
Allergy testing is infamously inaccurate. That's because there are not necessarily predictive values for many foods. Eggs and dairy have predictive values. If you score above a certain number it is an allergy. My kid scored very high for wheat. Kid can eat wheat no reaction. Allergist said that there is no predictive value (a number that is for sure an allergy) for wheat and the test doesn't mean allergy. Usually when someone passes a skin test (and blood test) they take a food challenge. Where the patient eats the food in - office over course of few hours to see if there is a real reaction to actual ingestion. Even skin tests are open to interpretation somewhat if hive is a borderline size.best test is ingestion and allergists know this.
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amother
Floralwhite


 

Post Fri, Sep 20 2019, 5:52 pm
cnc wrote:
The responses are so interesting.
My pediatrician claimed that allergy testing is very inaccurate. (This was around 7 years ago. I wonder if things have changed so much since then...)


Yes! At least according to my allergist, who has been practicing for at least 40 years and who has been our kids allergist for about ten years. He has offered testing in the last couple of years that were not available seven years ago.
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dankbar




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Sep 22 2019, 1:52 am
You never know when it might wake up & this time a reaction will be caused. I know for myself sometimes certain foods bother me & sometimes not.

Also if it's already coming up on medical tests then it's real. A kineseologist might give you a longer lists of foods that your body doesn't agree with or you are intolerant of but if it shows up medically it's an allergy
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