Allergy tests for babies

[ViolaMum]

Originally Posted by deena

BTDT with my last two babies. I did an elimination diet and, frankly, I would trust that a million times over any blood or prick tests. Much more reliable in my opinion. Obviously it's not easy to do though so I sympathize what she's going through. Especially when you're breastfeeding and HUNGRY. But it's SOOOOOO worth it when baby starts feeling better. Taking digestive enzymes with every meal also helped me heal but we still had to eliminate offending foods.


Edited to add: that I just read Violamom's post where she said kind of the opposite of me and just wanted to clarify to her in particular that I'm not saying you're wrong and didn't write this in response to your post. That was just, off the cuff, my experience. It's not necessarily the best option for everyone.

I didn't take that as a personal reproach at all. No worries! (I didn't realize you were back at GCM! It's nice to "see"you.)

My response was to the question of whether or not there's a definitive lab test, and while our pediatrician told me that blood and scratch tests are an either/or situation, our allergist is insistent that it's the combination of those two tests that is important. They're tools. One of my kids tested highly positive to a particular environmental allergen and several food allergens via blood test. Scratch test showed only mild allergies to two of the food allergens, so we did a food challenge for the stronger of the two which she passed. The environmental allergen had skewed the blood test results, which I was told was common.

I wouldn't want to put a baby through either test, though if it could be fixed with less invasive measures. The friend I mentioned above had a baby whose digestive tract was inflamed from entrance to exit. She was a vegetarian and when she eliminated all the foods she thought could be problems, she wasn't eating much variety, her baby was still miserable and she needed help. Getting that list from the allergist set some parameters for her so that she could build a diet that worked. She ended up eating meat because her baby was allergic to all her protein sources - eggs, dairy, nuts, and peanuts.