The truth about allergy testing
Mistakes that 99% of you are making - and that are costing you $$$
One of the most important elements of functional medical practice is evaluating and testing for allergies.
What are allergies? The conventional definition of allergies is extremely limited, and includes a very, very small proportion of what patients think of when they hear the word.
For the sake of brevity, I'm going to say, "immune reactions."
People can have immune reactions against harmless elements of their diets and environments. Celiac disease is a classic example. You eat gluten, your immune system attacks the gluten, and then your immune system gets confused and starts attacking elements of YOUR body that LOOK LIKE gluten.
Gluten-sensitivity can manifest as headaches, clumsiness, psychosis, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bloating, joint pain, and more.
And gluten is just one protein. Imagine all the other proteins out there. What if all these other proteins can cause just as many symptoms as gluten?
What I've found in my practice is that, for whatever reason, people will have hidden sensitivities to foods that may manifest in different organs and tissues, at different times and places.
We see the effects of this when we eliminate the offending agent from the diet. For example, someone who eliminates gluten might see alleviation of brain fog, fatigue, or joint pain, but it might take as long as three or four weeks for the full effects to be seen!
The average person eats hundreds, if not thousands, of different foods and ingredients in a given week. From artificial colorings to flavor enhancers to dough-conditioners, anti-humectants, anti-caking agents, and nutritional fortification, your food is full of things you might be reacting to in some strange, difficult-to-quantify way.
Wouldn't it be great if we could test for these reactions?
We can, and the functional medicine world is CRAZY about these tests.
But I'm not... or at least, I'm not crazy about most of them.
Here's why.
The question we're asking isn't really, "what is my immune system reacting to?"
It's actually.... "Is it worthwhile for me to give up food x or ingredient y?"
That's a very different question.
For example, I've heard of patients with whole-body eczema or psoriasis experiencing massive improvements, even complete resolution, by identifying the proper trigger in their diet and getting rid of it.
Let's say you had disfiguring skin problems due to a certain food or cosmetic ingredient. Let's say that avoidance of that food or ingredient meant the difference between being stunningly beautiful, and downright ugly.
Those are pretty high stakes (pun intended).
Let's say, on the other hand, that you get a slightly runny nose when you eat dairy.
A runny nose isn't as big a deal as a disfiguring skin condition.
When it comes down to figuring out what you're allergic to, NO test is 100% accurate.
You know what IS 100% accurate? Eliminating the food and finding out what happens.
The trouble is that this is often VERY inconvenient. It's a laborious, time-consuming, and often fruitless process. Let's say that you are reacting to walnuts (but don't realize it), and you start cycling out ingredients that you eat to try to figure out if food allergies are part of your problem. You cycle out gluten, dairy, peanuts, soy, almonds, pecans, cashews, pine nuts, macadamia nuts, and FINALLY walnuts.
You cycle each ingredient out for three weeks, and you see positive results.
What's the problem with this approach?
If you're cycling one ingredient or food in or out every three weeks, it will take 30 weeks to eliminate just ten foods.
Imagine living with cripplingly bad symptoms for over six months, without resolution as to what is causing them.
Let's say you just eliminate thirty or more foods or, if you're really serious, cutting your diet down to ten or fewer ingredients altogether.
You might see results sooner, but here's the problem.
What if you're reacting to something that you are still eating?
You might wrongly conclude that you aren't reacting negatively to anything in your diet.
In short, empiric elimination diets are a PAIN and, while they are cheap and effective, they leave much to be desired.
Thus, the appeal of allergy testing. People LOVE allergy testing.
And here's where the trouble with allergy testing begins...
The rest of this post is for premium subscribers only, because what I'm going to say about allergy testing is more than a little controversial in the world of functional medicine... and it could save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars in unnecessary testing and treatment... so I'd say it's well worth the premium subscription to my blog.