Healthcare providers recommend and conduct allergy tests to identify the allergens responsible for your immune system overreacting. Food allergy testing could reveal that milk, peanuts, eggs, fish, or soy are causing your allergic reactions. You may display allergic symptoms half an hour to two hours after ingesting a particular food.
Food allergy symptoms typically include:
- Swelling on face, tongue, or lips, breaking out into hives, general skin itching
- Wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath
- Nausea, diarrhoea, abdominal pain
- Weak pulse, pale skin, dizziness
Need For Testing
If you are allergic to a specific type of food, your immune system gets badly affected. Food allergy testing helps establish the primary cause of discomforting reactions within your body. Should you have asthma or your family history reveals allergic reactions, you are at greater risk of developing food allergies.
Healthcare experts determine the specific allergens causing an allergic reaction by performing a diagnostic allergy test. For the latter, a patch, scratch, blood, skin injection, or a challenge testing method is undertaken. Undergoing this testing enables you to prevent life-threatening allergic reactions and lead a quality life.
Testing for food allergies is beneficial for the listed reasons:
Helps you Better Manage Your Allergies
You can avoid consuming the potentially dangerous allergen when you know the precise food trigger that sets off your allergic reactions. If you still develop an allergy due to accidental ingestion, you can effectively keep the reaction in control.
Taking medication as prescribed by a qualified medical professional assists in managing your allergies in a timely and proper manner.
Safeguards you from Life-Threatening Reactions.
Because of severe allergies, your body is at risk of going into anaphylactic shock. The effects of this life-threatening reaction are rapid, ranging from a drop in blood pressure to breathing difficulties because of your airway narrowing down.
Timely testing detects the allergens you must avoid at all costs since these bring on dangerously severe reactions. You can thus rule out developing extreme reactions that can potentially threaten your life.
Enlightens you On Allergies You May Pass On
Knowing your allergens is critical to assess the generation after you could potentially inherit. Not all allergies appear in your younger days; some may develop in your adult life. Either way, accurate test results ensure you are on your guard and practice responsible consumption.
Living with Allergies
Your healthcare practitioner may recommend implementing a combination of the following steps with immediate effect should you be detected with an allergy:
- Minimise exposure to foods that cause you to react adversely.
- Resort to prescribed allergy medications that keep your reactions in check.
- Carry a medical alert card on your person highlighting your severe allergens, which come in handy should an emergency arise.
- Keep an EpiPen or epinephrine injection with you to effectively counter a severe anaphylactic allergic reaction.
Approach a reputed medical lab with a qualified and experienced staff committed to practising a professional approach to pathology testing. Where excellence in customer service and innovation is a priority, accurate results are delivered on time.
