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Allergy Testing and Treatments(or, To RAST or Not To RAST -- that is the question!)
When it comes to allergy testing for food allergies or environmental allergens, there are several choices available to you. The question is, how do you choose among the alternatives? That was the question I was faced with ten years ago, when I began to react to many different foods. In my case, the answer was obvious; skin scratch tests revealed so many positives that blood CAP RAST tests were called for. So I had about 50 of them done -- an expensive proposition, to be sure. In the end, some of the positives agreed with the skin scratch tests, and some of the blood tests were negative. That helped my allergist and me decide which foods we would do food challenges on. If the above paragraphs read like gobbledygook, watch this this page for articles and other information about different types of allergy testing. I'll describe the legitimate, medically accepted and reliable types, as well as allergy tests that are widely held to be more questionable in nature. Stay tuned!
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