When my daughter was initially tested for food allergies we had long suspected she was allergic to milk, but it was a surprise to learn of her egg and peanut allergies too. She had not yet been exposed to these foods (other than breastfeeding).
Our allergist explained that a positive result was meaningless in the absence of actual symptoms... meaning that false positives are not uncommon. However the positive tests indicated the likelyhood of an allergic reaction which in the case of the eggs was very high and peanuts moderately high. Of course we were told to keep off both of these.
But unlike other food allergies,once you have a positive rast to peanuts, you are considered to be PA for life. Even if rasts return to normal we are told not to be complacent.
Now statistically she has a reasonable chance of outgrowing the milk and egg allergies (though I am not getting my hopes up) but the peanut allergy is one I am assuming is for life. Given my daughters history with milk, the possibility of her having a false positive to peanuts (and egg)is probably low even though she has never to my knowledge eaten them.
What I wonder is if there are more false positives to peanuts than we know of. Parents usually undergo allergy testing because we either have found out the hard way, or have been suspicious of certain foods or perhaps have a family tendency towards allergies. Then the allergist often tests for a number of foods even if there is not a known problem with them.
What, I wonder, is if the non pa general public was randomly selected for testing how many would have a positive rast test?
How many under 3s(if a random selection were sampled) would have positive rasts to peanuts that are never known about because they have never reacted and therefore have had no reason to be tested? (and therefore never diagnosed as PA)
Perhaps it is more common than we know for children to have positive rasts under three, and not be allergic.
Has such a study been done? My allergist couldn't tell me.
Many children are tested because they have reacted to peanuts already and their diagnosis is not in doubt, but I wonder how many children out there are like mine, having been tested for peanuts because of other food allergies or another reason but who has never knowingly reacted to peanuts
Do you doubt the diagnosis? Are you glad you had them tested or do you wish that you had been told to take all the PA precautions but leave the testing til they were older?
Sure it is best to be prepared, I am all for better safe than sorry, but once you are diagnosed with this you are stuck with it.
What do others think?
We are in a similar situation and I can see your line of thinking. Our DD was tested for allergies very young (6 months) in an effort to help her intense ezcema. She had never been exposed to peanuts because she was still on formula and baby food.
She tested positive for peanut, dust and dog allergies. I am allergic to dust and dog and had a mild tomato allergy at one time.
We are taking all of the necessary precautions with the peanut allergy and foolishly hope that she might outgrow it someday.
[This message has been edited by Jeannine (edited March 31, 2003).]