Food allergies affect more and more people.
The hard part is identifying the source of the allergy.
Many folks get tested for environmental allergens.
This seems to be the route of choice for many doctors.
But for a lot of people, this may likely miss the root causes of the patient's symptoms.
Food allergies can develop over time.
You may eat a food earlier in life and be completely fine.
Later on, you can eat that same food and have a reaction.
The first episode simply primes your body to react later.
Your body mislabels certain foods as enemies to the body.
Once that food is introduced into the body, it starts to produce antibodies to fight the mislabeled enemy.
This is why you can eat the food and not react until later in life.
Some people grow out of these reactions.
You may find that a child reacts to eating peanut butter, but can eat it when they are three.
Shellfish are notorious for later onset reactions.
These allergies tend to persist in the individual after that point in time.
So, identifying the allergy can go a long way to a treatment and prevention plan.
If you think you have food allergies, you should try to go to a doctor who tests for them.
When you are tested, you will be tested in one or more ways.
But first, the doctor will probably get a physical and a complete medical history.
This will alert her to the numerous reactions you have had.
Then she may conduct a skin test.
A skin test is done by pricking the skin and applying a small amount of the suspected allergen.
The blood test is completed to asses the presence of specific Immunoglobulin E types.
Your body produces specific kinds of this antibody to combat a specific allergen.
For example, if you were allergic to peanut butter, your body would produce a specific Immunoglobulin E type.
Then the doctor would be able to assess if you were allergic to that substance.
A food test is done to confirm a suspected food allergy.
It should be noted that this kind of test should only be done by medical professionals.
Don't try this at home, where you may not be able to effectively treat any onset of symptoms.
In this test, the physician gives that patient increasing amounts of the food that is suspected.
If your allergy isn't severe, and you want to test for it yourself, you can try to do an elimination diet.
This diet slowly takes away many known allergies in the attempt to identify the root cause.
You could start with wheat products, then add dairy, then seafood, etc.
If you are experiences severe reactions, you should seek the help of a food allergist.