How can an egg allergy be diagnosed?
Talk to your doctor about your child's symptoms. It is also important to keep track of what your child eats and when they get allergic symptoms. Keep an eye out not only for eggs, but also for egg containing foods like cakes. Your doctor might ask you to do an elimination diet challenge to confirm or aid a diagnosis. In addition, they may ask to do blood tests or skin tests too.
The most reliable diagnostic test for any food allergy is an elimination diet challenge. You must make sure your child does not eat any food which may contain eggs, and observe to see if his or her symptoms stop. Your doctor might then ask you to reintroduce egg containing foods into your child's diet to see if his or her symptoms start again. Any elimination diet challenges should be done under close supervision and with the consultation of a dietician or your doctor, and can last a few weeks. There are blood tests and skin tests too.
A RAST (radioallergosorbent test) is done by taking a blood sample and trying to react various allergens with the chemicals (in particular, IgE) in your blood. It is done in the lab, and is quite reliable too. A skin prick test is less reliable and accurate than a RAST, and involves introducing small amounts of allergen to the skin to see if a reaction develops. If you are allergic to egg, you might see a “wheal and flare” - an irregular, blanched area of skin surrounded by a reddened area of inflammation.
Egg allergies Guide Index:
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