Hi Tracy! This is Krystle, producer for MyAllergyNetwork.com. Thanks for writing!

I'm forwarding your question to our doctor and will let you know the response.

All the best,

Krystle Kopacz 

Tracy

9/14/07 2:50pm

Thank you

Hi Tracy. I'm sorry to hear about your son's allergy diagnosis. Unfortunately, I can't provide much information without knowing a what kind of test he had. There are a variety of different allergy tests, and the only one that's even close to 100% accurate for food allergies is a double-blind, placebo-controlled challenge test. Because this can be risky for people who have shown some allergic reaction to peanuts, allergists will often begin with a skin test or RAST blood test, but these often provide false positives. In other words, they indicate that the person is allergic to peanuts, but he really isn't.

There are a lot of other allergy tests out there, but they are, as far as I know, scientifically unproven, and people who get these tests done often end up placing unnecessary dietary restrictions upon themselves.

For more information on both sides of the allergy testing story, I invite you to check out this recent discussion on allergy tests we had in the WEGO Health community (I'm the community moderator there)

http://forums.wegohealth.com/forums/viewthread/87_25/

That said, peanut allergies can be very serious, so it's important that you speak to your doctor to get clarification on the test results -- if your son is indeed severely allergic to peanuts, he must avoid them.

Please do let me know what kind of test it was, though, and I may be able to provide more information. Thanks. And best of luck to you and your son!