Allergy Testing
Imagine getting scratched 280 times on your forearm and looking for spots. If any spots show up, you know you have 100 shots in your future. That is what you are committing to if you decide to undergo an allergy scratch test.
I always felt an allergy test to be the holy grail of medical testing. Find out what you are allergic to, eliminate it, and health-free bliss would be the result. How I miss that illusion. The results of my allergy scratch test left me puzzled and still looking for the elusive perfect health regimen.
When you take the allergy test, the doctor makes 140 pen dots on your forearms. You then receive a drop of 140 different weed, tree, animal, mold, and food oils on your skin. Each drop is scratched a few times and you wait to see if it turns red or starts to itch. If it does, you are allergic. If it doesn't, you are not allergic.
I got all my drops and scratches and sat for 10 minutes waiting for the results. The results came pretty quickly. I had a couple of rapidly expanding red blobs on my left forearm. My right forearm did not react at all, was this a placebo arm or something? Come to find out, my right forearm had all the food allergy testing. I did not have any food allergies at all. Meanwhile, my left arm had approximately 10 red blobs that itched or were inflamed to some degree. It was determined that I am allergic to cedar, birch, maple, and oak trees. A couple of random molds and dust mites were also on the allergy list, along with dog hair.
These results puzzled me. How could I not have a food allergy when my stomach gets achy and bloated at least one meal a day. I had long operated under the assumption that my stomach problems were to a food allergy that I just needed to determine and avoid.
Then the allergist mentioned cross reaction allergies. A cross reaction allergy occurs when a particular weed, mold, or tree is in season. Breathing the allergen into your body causes it to mix with the foods you eat. Certain foods don't mix with certain trees and molds.
I was initially elated to find this out. I anxiously awaited the doctor's advice on my cross reaction allergy diet. The dietary holy grail was finally mine! Avoid the foods listed and I would be super healthy! I received a one-page fax with the diet instructions. It said that tree season was February to may and that I needed to avoid carrots, celery, and apples because they would mix with my tree allergens and cause problems.
Uhh.....yeah...that's great. I had barely touched any of the 3 food items over the past couple months. Actually I had maybe ate a salad once a week, which never has celery in it because Melissa doesn't like celery, and I haven't had an apple this year. The cross reaction allergy diet would provide no relief! So as much as I loved the theory, I am once again back to the dietary holy grail search.
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