Phone: 630-893-9661
Food Allergy
An important way of assessing your food sensitivities is the Multiple Food Elimination and Challenge trial. This basically entails changing your diet for a time to include only those foods that you normally wouldn't eat more than once a week. This may be done for 5-21 days to see if any of your chronic symptoms clear. Then, you reintroduce basic foods back into your diet one day at a time, and observe for any symptoms over a 24 hour period. Symptoms appearing during that time are likely due to the food you introduced that day. With a little planning and some self-discipline, this method can be very effective in uncovering food sensitivities, and is considered the "gold standard" for determining if any foods might be contributing to your health problems.
A secondary method of food allergy assessment that can often be helpful is a blood test that measures IgE and IgG4 antibody levels to most of the foods that people eat. Although this test is controversial, we have found it to a helpful adjunct in our practice toward identifying and managing food sensitivities.
One of the most important elements of allergy medicine is learning how to avoid things that trigger symptoms or add to your total load. This is something we emphasize in our practice. We also try and help make your body better able to handle exposures by supporting other systems of your body that contribute to better tolerance.
Currently, allergy testing in our office is done by our allergy nurse, Joan, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Late afternoon and evening hours are available. Allergy shots are available on a walk-in basis on those days as well, so no appointment is needed. We recommend that patients wait in the allergy waiting room for about 20 minutes following their shots. During that time, they can enjoy our deluxe massage chair, catch up on a favorite novel, or engage in lively conversation with other allergy patients they've gotten to know.
Allergy shots that are given in the office typically begin as once a week. Over time, as your symptoms improve, shots can be spread out to a few as once every 3-4 weeks. Then, after a total of 3-10 years, shots can be stopped with a high likelihood of relief lasting many years.
One of the most important elements of environmental medicine is learning how to avoid things that trigger symptoms or add to your total load. This is something we emphasize in our practice. We also try and help make your body better able to handle exposures by supporting other systems of your body that contribute to better tolerance.
Multiple Dilution Intractaneous testing
Meridian Valley
