"In truth, question everything"....

This blog post on an allergy blog I follow: Grading the Severity of your Allergy: Sensitivity vs. Reaction Level, gives good advice on how to decipher your reaction levels, your severity.  What do you (or your child) react to?   Everything in the air?  Cross contamination?  Trace proteins?  Food families? Through breastmilk?  Through feed from the animal contaminating the meat?  Through formula?  On the skin?

With Non-IgE allergy, just as with an IgE Allergy, even the blood and skin tests will not tell the severity of an allergy; it will only tell the positive antibody production and the probability of reaction.   The only tried and true way to tell a person's reaction level is by testing it with elimination and challenge.  Eliminate the food from the diet, if symptoms subside, there are good chances you are allergic and need to eliminate that food, and all derivatives of it from the diet.  Some reaction symptoms are obvious enough you don't have to, nor would you want to, challenge the food.   A challenge would consist of a re-introduction of the food once suspected symptoms have resolved.  This challenge can also help determine severity of the allergy; as addressed in the above blog article.   Some people react to any and all minute derivatives or cross contamination of the allergen, some can handle derivatives or oils, etc.  The only true way to know is to challenge, and in the meantime- question everything.