Allergy testing

[cjsmith]

I went in today to be tested for allergies to 1) serotonin and 2) lots of common foods.

I'm apparently allergic to every substance they tested. This includes about 80% of what's legal for me to eat, on this diet that's already so restrictive I can barely have a social life.

The woman who did the testing tried to tell me to eliminate these foods for six weeks, or at least make the portions of them smaller. I told her I was already down nine pounds and I wasn't going to eliminate a damn thing.

She said maybe I could substitute. I pointed to where the substitutions sheet suggested other things I was either allergic to or couldn't have on the current diet. She suggested things I hadn't been tested for. I said looking at the sample set, it's reasonable to infer that I'm allergic to many of those too, and since we don't know which ones, it's kind of pointless.

I told her I felt fine other than the joint pain. She said chronic food allergy can cause inflammation that could explain the joint pain. I said my pain had never responded to anti-inflams of any kind, including some pretty strong ones, so it was reasonable to conclude my pain is not inflammatory in nature.

So I'm ignoring it.

There's nothing else to do really.

I want my $625 back.

I am seriously considering never going to another doctor again. All they've done for me is take my money, make my life miserable with "noninvasive" approaches, and fail to get results. I HAVE HAD IT.

Comments

[chinders.livejournal.com]

Ugh. That sounds really awful. *offers hugs*

[msmichelle.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry, CJ.
FWIW, my husband has moved on from his doctors for rehab of his knee. Sometimes, they just don't have solutions.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Who are you seeing? Harmony Health? Have you compared notes with klrmn yet? About 18 mos ago she was diagnosed as allergic to everything under the sun, too. Some of it she's worked with by gradually phasing things in or out, most of it she's ignored. Also, have you considered consulting (or have you already consulted) with a Health At Every Size doc? HAES has a strong "mental health counts too" component, and I think someone strong in it would be less likely to make stupid suggestions to you.

I'm sorry the health professionals are failing you. I wish you strength, peace, and miracles.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

diagnosed as allergic to everything under the sun, too

Maybe they do that to everybody. I tell ya what, I'm not doing one thing about it. I do not suffer from chronic fatigue nor do I suffer from any of the eight million other things this would cause. I don't think the person who did the testing is outright lying to me, but I bet it's close.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I wish they'd be honest about that before slurping down $30K+.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hugs are great. Got a flamethrower I could borrow, too? ;-)

[chinders.livejournal.com]

Nope, but I can work on that. Perhaps we can construct it from all the food you can't eat! Or use that as fuel. Something.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

I have chosen not to go see them, because I'm not interested in the answer I'm fairly certain that I'll get. My sense is that they have a very simplistic answer to all of the world's ills (or at least every woman's ills). It just doesn't happen to be the one the REST of the medicos in our country are pushing.

I'm not interested in being strong-armed into Orthorexia. If I wanted that, all I'd have to do is listen to my mother. And of course recovering would be easy, too--just get down on my knees and pray.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Trebuchet ammo. AFTER it rots, of course. :)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

man, that sucks :( i'm with you, though - it seems dead unlikely that you're *actually* allergic to everything and its dog. *hug*

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

FWIW, klrmn actually has symptoms that she's trying to isolate. They're mostly emotional stuff. Her headaches were greatly improved when she went off corn, and her intestinal symptoms were further improved when she eliminated milk, especially cow's milk. Most of the rest of the dietary changes she has tried have had mixed results at best. She feels she has gotten some good out of the drops for various other things, including airbornes, serotonin, and LH. I will say that I think that she is more emotionally stable since looking into all this, though maybe not as much as I would have liked to have seen given how much trouble and expense it is for her.

YMMV, of course, but you might at least want to commiserate.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*eyeroll* about the praying. That's another side of good old "you haven't been thinking positively enough." People like that need to see some real problems that saying la la la won't make go away, like maybe a federal seizure of property or multiple sclerosis or death threats from a crazy junkie or something.

I gotta hand it to Harmony, though, that Dr. Metzger is Lyme-literate. I don't know where I'd have found another one of those.

O'course, that's presuming I even have Lyme. I tested positive on one band. ONE BAND. Nobody in the universe except IGeneX would call that a positive result. Most other labs need FIVE. I'm not disputing I've been exposed to the bacterium at some point in my life; antibodies don't just randomly grow. But beyond that one fact there's nothing conclusive here.

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

How the hell can you be allergic to serotonin, when your body uses it for digestion?! Your digestive system uses more of it than your brain does!

If I had a flamethrower I could loan you...

[ohhjuliet.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I have no idea what to say, but I'm so very sorry you're having to deal with this. *hug* You're in my thoughts and prayers, always.

[hot-turkey.livejournal.com]

Holy suckaceousness, that's awful. *hugs* The whizbang technology of modern medicine generally looks far more impressive from a distance, progressively less so as it's brought to bear on one's own problems, I've found. Hype is everywhere.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Doesn't it? Wouldn't you think I'd have LESS energy and vivaciousness and vigor rather than, oh, always been way above average on those for my age? Wouldn't you think I'd have SOME other weird health problem, not just mysterious symmetric pain in four small joints that show no damage?

I won't pretend I had no reaction to serotonin. That made a big ol' red splotch all over my shoulder. But the rest of it can go hang.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, people are. They usually wind up with depression, but hey, there've been times I thought I wasn't far off. (Although if talk therapy helped, then what does that mean about the brain chemistry?)

That's the one I totally had a reaction to, by the way. Splotch nearly the size of my palm, all red. I'll give 'em that one. But the rest of it sounds about as plausible as voodoo to me right now.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

do you have any exposure to serotonin in the normal course of events?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHA I like the way you think. Rob and I could do our own set of desensitization exercises.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I do not know why I was dealt this particular set of cards, but I'll admit that right now I want some words with whoever shuffled the deck.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

More impressive from a distance is an excellent way to put it. There's a reason wondrous cures make news. They're rare. Just like most news, they aren't the kind of thing that usually happens to Joe Schmoe next door.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that is what you were told.

I'm curious about trying to decipher their test results with you, if you are willing. I'm willing to try and decipher what they are testing and WHY, and try to figure out how they arrive at the conclusions they do. I'm somewhat concerned about their methods.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

actually has symptoms that she's trying to isolate

That's rough. I feel for her. Reading this paragraph I suddenly realized that the thing orthorexia or even you're-allergic-to-everything COULD be good for is hypochondria. If there AREN'T symptoms, telling somebody to eat more veggies keeps the person nicely occupied and mostly out of harm's way. But when something's really going on in there... *sigh*

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you! That would be wonderful. That is a spectacularly great offer and I appreciate it a lot.

I don't know if I have enough good hard science to be useful to you; I don't have any kind of writeup with numbers on it, and I may not have any kind of description of the process or the compounds used (beyond "I got lots of transdermal shots in my shoulders"). I'll look at the handouts I was given... when I'm a bit less angry. :-) And I deeply thank you.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Sounds... iffy at best. Did you do confirmatory tests? One band,once, just doesn't sound like enough.

And yes, *eyeroll* on the praying thing. See, I wouldn't have any allergies to dust anymore if I'd just "stand against the Devil," dontchaknow.

[This is my "reaching" icon, since I think there's a lot of reaching going on in this diagnosis, by my mom, etc.!]