Allergy testing

[dismom2]

The airplane--peanut threat has me curious about allergies and testing.
How did you find out you were allergic to something (or your child), and what kind of testing was done, what was the reaction, and results? How did they write out the results?

Our allergy doctor does the skin test. I've gone to two places and had the scratch testing done on my back and my arms. Afterward, they injected me a few times on the upper arm with a needle, putting a little liquid bubble just under my skin. I can't find my first results, but the second place just put lines next to the things I am allergic to---some have one line, some have several, with a line across them. Do some people have actually numbers (between one and ten, for example) showing the severity of the allergy? The last place I took my kids, the lady measured the size of the hives with a ruler type instrument.
I was also told that, other than the peanut allergy, some of the food items that showed positive are not 100% accurate.

 

[Christine]

I answered you on the other thread but I thought I'd repost it here:

There are two types of tests we've had done--the skin prick test and a blood test.

For the skin prick test, the wheal is measured. As far as I know, the measurement does not go above a 4. My son always gets measured at 4+++ whatever that means. His wheal/hive is one of the largest they've seen for peanut. It's pretty big. But, actually, his wheal/hive for Timothy grass was even worse.

On the blood tests, there *may* be a number given and based on your number you are thrown into a range. When my son had a blood test, he fell into the range of "severe" for shellfish, and "moderate" for peanut. When his allergist saw the "moderate" for peanut, she talked about doing an oral challenge. But first, she wanted to do a skin prick prior to the oral challenge. She she saw the wheal/hive he developed on the skin prick, she backed WAY off on doing an oral challenge. She apparently believes that a skin prick test provides more of an indicator of how a person might react upon ingestion than a blood test does.

As for Timothy grass, I'm not sure if we even have that type of grass. I do know that my son can be outside with no problems but if he sits in grass, touches grass, or even tries to mow the law, his arms and legs will break out.

 

[vettechick99]

I think I'm gonna make an appt for DD2 to get allergy tested. Her ped said the local doctor won't see kids before 3 because of the way they test (too much on a poor toddler), but I need some clear answers on her health.

DD has two allergies that we know of: egg and peanuts. When she has eggs, her face breaks out. It goes away after a little while, but we still keep her from eating them. As for peanuts, we found out because at 20m I smeared a little peanut butter on her lips and this is what happened within 3-4 mins...

So that was a pretty major reaction! Scary huh? I don't have one single allergy, so it's weird to deal with all of this.

I am wary though, as you said, that she'll positively react to so many allergans falsely. And in the meantime, I'll have to limit her diet just to be safe. I don't know. It's all a pain!

 

[Best Aunt]

You can ask the doctor's office to mail you a copy of the test results.

When they prick your back, I believe the highest (most severe allergy) is a 4, although I think previous poster is correct in saying they might put down 4+++ for a severe allergy.

 

[LaraK]

I also posted on the other thread. My son also has had a third type of test called patch testing (along with the other two)

My son has a different type of food allergic situation. He has a disease called Eosinophilic Esophagitis. With this disease the body releases eosinophils into the esophagus when exposure happens. Many kids with this disease are described as being "allergic to food" because the allergies are so expansive and many end up no longer being able to eat anything (they are tube fed).

We realized something was wrong with my son when he was 10 months old. He began to vomit multiple times every day. He wasn't diagnosed until he was 22 months old (lots and lots of testing and figuring out what was going on). He finally had an endoscopy with biopsy, which quickly identified that he had tons of eosinophils. He had patch testing after that where four foods were identified as a problem....turkey, bananas, chocolate and pears. Unfortunately, he's sick again and his last biopsy showed even more eosinophils, so we're going for another patch test in a couple of weeks. I pray that they find a source or we have to consider eliminating most food from his diet and he'll move to suplimental formula.

 

[Christine]

I think I'm gonna make an appt for DD2 to get allergy tested. Her ped said the local doctor won't see kids before 3 because of the way they test (too much on a poor toddler), but I need some clear answers on her health.

DD has two allergies that we know of: egg and peanuts. When she has eggs, her face breaks out. It goes away after a little while, but we still keep her from eating them. As for peanuts, we found out because at 20m I smeared a little peanut butter on her lips and this is what happened within 3-4 mins...

So that was a pretty major reaction! Scary huh? I don't have one single allergy, so it's weird to deal with all of this.

I am wary though, as you said, that she'll positively react to so many allergans falsely. And in the meantime, I'll have to limit her diet just to be safe. I don't know. It's all a pain!

This is EXACTLY how my son looked when he had his reaction at 9 months. His daycare center was working with him on eating table foods and they had some small bits of toast smeared with peanut butter. That is how he reacted.

My son was allergy tested at around 10 months to confirm the allergy. At that point, they only tested him for the 8 most common food allergens. He tested positive to peanut and egg white. We didn't know about the egg because we had not fed it too him yet. He was fine for things like soy, fish, dairy, wheat, etc. I was worried he'd get a false positive also because besides being young, he has eczema and a lot of times you can get skin reactions from all sorts of stuff. I had read that this can be a confusing factor in skin prick tests. As bad as his eczema is/was, it never affected his results.

I have heard that some allergists won't test under 3 years of age but I thought that had more to do with the environmental allergens (pollens, grasses, etc) because it seems to take that long before those allergies show up in children.

I don't know what type of area you live in but I might look into finding a pediatric allergist.

 

[dismom2]

Poor baby! I realized my child had a peanut allergy when she broke out in hives from head to toe after eating something with peanuts in it. Our doctor wouldn't test her, either. After a couple of years I insisted I get a referral, or I would have to switch doctors so I could get a referral, then he finally gave in. I'm glad I did because I found out she has many other allergies, too. Sometimes you 'know' or have a strong suspicion, but it's nice to have it confirmed, and to know of other allergies you were not aware of.

I think I'm gonna make an appt for DD2 to get allergy tested. Her ped said the local doctor won't see kids before 3 because of the way they test (too much on a poor toddler), but I need some clear answers on her health.

DD has two allergies that we know of: egg and peanuts. When she has eggs, her face breaks out. It goes away after a little while, but we still keep her from eating them. As for peanuts, we found out because at 20m I smeared a little peanut butter on her lips and this is what happened within 3-4 mins...

So that was a pretty major reaction! Scary huh? I don't have one single allergy, so it's weird to deal with all of this.

I am wary though, as you said, that she'll positively react to so many allergans falsely. And in the meantime, I'll have to limit her diet just to be safe. I don't know. It's all a pain!