Personalized Medicine

What does the word “allergy” mean to you? Does it conjure up images of nasal congestion, watery eyes, and sneezing in response to pollen or a pet animal? Perhaps you’re visualizing an emergency room scene brought on by eating seafood or peanuts?

Indeed, the reactions above exemplify one common type of allergic response in the body. The immune system recognizes the pollen or peanuts as a “foreign agent” and produces antibodies – called IgE – to neutralize their effects.

IgE reactions occur soon after exposure to the allergen, usually within hours. The chemicals released in the body trigger redness, swelling, breathing difficulties or skin rashes and itching.

However, another set of reactions can also occur. These develop slowly, appearing up to three days after exposure to the allergen. The antibody responsible, called IgG, binds with the allergen and begins to get deposited in various body tissues.

Normally, cells in the liver and spleen are able to remove these allergen-antibody complexes. But if exposure to the allergen continues, these complexes linger on, producing chronic symptoms unexplained by conventional causes.

For example, consumption of a particular food that you are allergic to might lead to joint aches and pains, chronic bloating and gas, headaches, cough and mucus production, and skin breakouts. Since the body response is not immediate, it is difficult to pin point a particular food as the cause of these symptoms, unlike the IgE reactions which occur within a few hours.

At Scienta Health, food allergy testing is used to diagnose chronic symptoms as described above, keeping the client’s medical history in mind, and after excluding any other common pathology. It is often used in conjunction with the nutrient and toxicity profiling, which may suggest that an underlying immune and digestive dysfunction is present.

The test is a simple blood draw, and the results include an easy to read graphic display of reactions to an exhaustive panel of foods.

Though seemingly simple, identifying food allergies may be just the answer for your unexplained ongoing symptoms. Avoiding foods that register as highly reactive, and limiting those that register as moderately reactive can have a tremendous impact on your health, or as one of our clients described it, “It completely changed my life. I went from sleeping 3-4 hours for years due to nightly sinus congestion to now sleeping 8 good hours.”

Shelley Burns, ND