Monday, November 21, 2011

Is it possible to be allergic to allergy tests but not the actual substance? (i.e. skin pricks)?

Because I get a lot of skin rashes I went for food allergy tests years ago and had about 85 skin pricks done. Turned out that I was allergic to 47 of the 85 things at levels 2-4 (The worst were, Level 3: potato, corn, Aspartame, melon, coconut, pea, hazelnut. Level 4: peanut, soy, mustard, string bean, lentil.) The allergist was surprised that I'd never had serious reactions to anything and even suggested an epipen.





It's been like 15 years and I've still not had a serious reaction, but I still get the rashes too.





Someone told me that it's possible to be allergic to the surface of your own skin so the breaking of the skin for the test could have had more to do with the positive result than the actual allergens that they were testing for.





Has anyone else heard of this?

Is it possible to be allergic to allergy tests but not the actual substance? (i.e. skin pricks)?
There is a certain amount of irritation that comes from the actual test. However, the grading scale for the reactions and the amount of time given between having the test placed and the test read helps to account for this.





It's possible that your body has been able to manage the allergy without going to the extreme of having a more serious reaction. It isn't quite understood why some people are less or more allergic. There are people who have +4 reactions to peanuts and never have an issue, some even consume them from time to time. So the research continues to find out why our bodies react the way they do.





I hope this helps!
Reply:I've had plenty of allergy tests like yours and some can be minor allergies. I am technically allergic to chocolate and corn, but have no problems with either. If you are getting skin rashes then you need to find out which allergy it is. You can form new allergies at any time. Example - I always drank tea, but in college had a serious reaction and now cannot drink tea at all!
Reply:I develop allergic rashes to my own sweat - anything is possible.
Reply:I've heard of so many reactions showing up on the skin scratch test that they can't really tell which are true allergies/sensitivities.But you may have something called leaky gut, where your intestines when processing foods can leak food proteins out of the gut and it get's absorbed into the blood/lymph. Since these proteins should not be there the body has an allergic reaction, and a rash may occur when the body is overloaded with all these proteins flooding out of the guts. They say if you have many allergies this is a possibility. Avoiding the trouble foods will help but ultimately healing the gut is the best way to prevent more allergies from developing (more types of food proteins from leaking out) There are some ways to help the body heal the gut, just google it. Seeing a naturopathic doctor may help as they can give you specific vitamins etc. that will heal the gut. Good Luck


No comments:

Post a Comment