ALLERGY TESTING: FACTS AND FALLACIES
Conventional medicine has generally not been successful in the diagnosis and treatment of allergies. Limited success has been achieved with airborne and home-related causes such as pollens, dust, house mites and pets. Because of this, specialists have continued to use similar methods in attempts to detect food and chemical sensitivities. The results have invariably been poor with testing proving to be inaccurate and treatment ineffective.
Why then do doctors persist in using medical techniques that do not do the job? The answer is simple. In this age of the much publicised 'wonder drug', people have come to expect quick diagnosis and treatment. Doctors, as well as patients, have fallen into the convenient trap of looking to drugs and chemicals for prompt results. It is faster and simpler to buy an allergy test kit from a drug manufacturer and use it on a patient, than to persist over a period of time with observation and deduction. If the test kit does not work the doctor explains that he cannot do more until medical science produces a better one. This reliance on manufactured preparations has tended to work against allergy sufferers, and it is only comparatively recently that alternative clinical methods of diagnosis have begun to emerge.
Before we move onto more recent developments, we should take a look at some of the tests, currently available, and their relative effectiveness.
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Allergies
