Just £89 for each test with results in 5-7 working days or both at the discounted price of £169
An allergy test (food or respiratory) is important for several reasons:
- Determine Allergens: Allergy testing helps identify specific substances that trigger allergic reactions. Knowing your allergens allows you to avoid or minimize exposure.
- Accurate Diagnosis: Testing helps differentiate between allergies and other conditions with similar symptoms, like colds or skin conditions, ensuring you receive the right treatment.
- Personalized Treatment: Once allergens are identified, your doctor can recommend effective treatment plans, such as medications, allergy shots (immunotherapy), or specific avoidance strategies.
- Prevent Severe Reactions: Identifying allergies can prevent serious or life-threatening reactions like anaphylaxis by helping you avoid high-risk situations and know when to carry emergency medications like epinephrine.
- Improve Quality of Life: Managing allergies effectively can significantly improve your daily life, reducing symptoms like sneezing, itching, breathing difficulties, and skin rashes.
Overall, allergy testing helps you understand your body’s responses and take control of your health by avoiding or managing allergic triggers.
The difference between an allergy and an intolerance
Allergies are generally more serious than sensitivities or intolerances and are often a permanent condition. Symptoms typically include headaches, cramps, diarrhoea, gas, or nausea.
Having an allergy means that the individual’s body cannot cope with a certain allergen, so exposure to it will irritate it immediately. This is why most allergic reactions are felt right away.
On the other hand, an intolerance is usually less serious than an allergy. Symptoms can be similar, but an intolerance to a substance can also cause coughing, swelling, abdominal pain, or breathing problems.
Unlike an allergic reaction, the symptoms of an intolerance are not always visible or felt immediately. They can appear anywhere from 10 minutes to 48 hours after exposure.
However, unlike allergies which are permanent, intolerance can change over time due to lifestyle and diet changes.
If you are interested in knowing your food intolerances rather than allergies, please click here.
How the test works and how to interpret the results
The food and/or respiratory allergies tests require few drops of capillary blood spotted on Whatman paper. Samples can be collected quickly at home.
Avoid antihistamines or allergy medications for several days – 3 to 10 – according to antihistamines (if they are short-acting or long acting) before testing, as they can interfere with results.
Note: Before stopping any medication, it is essential to consult with your allergist or prescribing physician to receive personalized guidance and ensure that stopping is safe and appropriate for your clinical situation.
When you place your order, we will send a kit to your address. This kit contains everything you need to collect your sample. After collecting your sample, you will need to simply return it to the address provided using our return envelope. Results for this test will be available within 5-7 working days of the lab receiving your samples. For an alphabetical list of items tested for food and respiratory allergies, please click on the sample reports below:
From each report, it’s possible to note how the allergens are divided into classes (from 0 to 6, where “0” indicates negligible levels of IgE antibodies and “6” very high levels) and intensity.
The Science Behind the Test
Food and respiratory allergy tests are diagnostic tools designed to identify specific allergens that trigger the immune system’s abnormal response.
They are performed to determine allergen-specific IgE (sIgE) antibodies in serum or plasma, for the diagnosis of the allergies considered. Each test allows the simultaneous analysis of sIgE directed against different allergens. It is used to diagnose sensitizations that can lead to symptoms associated with allergies, including conjunctivitis, rhinitis or gastrointestinal problems. These symptoms can be caused by incorrect immune reactions that cause an increase in the concentrations of antibodies of the immunoglobulin E (IgE) class, which can be measured with the test.
The sensitivity/specificity of this test is equal to 83-100%
The sensitivity concerns the % of false negatives, while the specificity is relative to the % of false positives.
These two parameters, interdependent, are related not only to the correct execution of the test and the sensitivity of the analysis (for allergies in particular given the complexity of the immune response in our body), but also concern the ad momentum conditions of the person undergoing the test.
It may in fact be that the symptoms are not entirely due to a reaction mediated by IgE at the time of the sample (also because the body takes some time to develop antibodies against that particular antigen, and, if their quantity does not exceed a certain threshold, the allergic reaction does not develop in the usual time).
For example, if the sensitization of the immune system has lasted a very long time with low quantities of antigens, the level of IgE that will develop will be below the detection threshold of the test; but if a second sample were taken after a while, its level of IgE could have increased in the meantime and we will see a much higher level of IgE (not because the first test was wrong, but because the immunological conditions change).
In case of allergies, moreover, these parameters must be adapted to each individual antigen (proteins of foods and respiratory allergens), for this reason the sensitivity to different antigens can range from 83% to 100%, depending on the antigens.
In particular for food allergens, whether or not they are recognized by our immune system also depends on their processing (cooking, boiling, frying, etc.).
Special Offers & Discounts
The price of the food allergy test or respiratory allergy test is £89 each. If you buy them together, the total price you pay is £169 instead of £178. If you order a second or third test, you can buy it for £85 instead of £89.
Other Affinity Health DNA Tests
As well as Allergy Tests, we also offer a range of genetic DNA tests for health and fitness. Please click on each of the links below for more information:
- Coeliac Disease Test
- Genetic Predispositions Health Test
- Gut Microbiome Test Kit
- Lactose Intolerance DNA Test
- Skin DNA Test
- Food Intolerance Test
If you have any questions about genetic health testing, please do not hesitate to Contact our Customer Service Team.