If it’s been a few years since you tested for food intolerances, it might be worth retesting to see if you still need to avoid those foods.
Perhaps you’ve been avoiding eggs, soy, lactose, gluten, or some other ingredient that you discovered you were intolerant to years ago. You avoid it without thinking, and at this point, it’s just part of your life. But, do you still need to avoid it all these years later?
Another reason to retest is if you’ve been experiencing new symptoms and may have a sensitivity to another food not on your radar.
Here’s what to know about retesting and navigating your dietary future.
First, it’s important to understand the difference between a food intolerance and an allergy. Though they can both make you feel miserable, there are some key differences.
An intolerance occurs when your digestive system is unable to properly break down food. It might be due to enzyme deficiencies, a sensitivity to a food additive, or a reaction to a naturally occurring chemical in foods.
Symptoms may include bloating, diarrhea, constipation, headaches, or a combination of symptoms.
Food allergies are caused by a reaction from your immune system, which can be life threatening and cause anaphylaxis. Even eating a tiny amount, touching, or inhaling the food can cause a reaction. A reaction can happen within a few minutes or up to a few hours later.
Symptoms may include rash or hives, swelling of the face, difficulty breathing, nausea, GI pain, and more.
Whether you first discovered an intolerance through a blood test or an elimination diet, working with a dietitian is a good idea, especially if you’re helping your child through this.
There is no specific timeline for retesting intolerances, other than when new symptoms appear. But it’s reasonable to retest if it’s been 2 years.
Most intolerances are self-reported and self-diagnosed, often causing unnecessary dietary restrictions. So, it bears mentioning again to work with a registered dietitian nutritionist as you try to determine what to keep and what to avoid in your diet.
While it may be frustrating, no diagnostic food intolerance test gives an accurate answer, with the exception of tests for lactose intolerance and hereditary fructose intolerance.
An elimination diet is typically suggested to test for a food intolerance. This involves avoiding the food in question for several weeks and then slowly adding it back into your diet to see if your symptoms return. Keeping a food/symptom journal can be helpful during this.
If you want to test for more than one food, you need to add them back into your diet one at a time, at least a week apart, so that you can tell which food is causing which symptoms.
In some cases, blood tests or a breath test (for lactose intolerance) may be used. The IgG test claims to diagnose food sensitivities, but this has never been scientifically proven.
Think you might have a food allergy?
When it comes to food allergies, there are more types of tests available and also
If you’re having a severe allergic reaction, call 911 in the United States or 999 in the UK or go to the nearest emergency room immediately.
Figuring out which foods don’t agree with you can take a lot of trial-and-error. But jumping to conclusions and avoiding one or more foods can also be harmful if you don’t actually need to avoid them.
When it comes to intolerances, the best approach is to follow an elimination diet, keep a food journal, and work with a registered dietitian.
If it’s been a few years since you started avoiding a certain food or if you have new symptoms, it may be worth repeating this approach to see if you still need to avoid that food or another one.