Report: Food allergies too difficult to diagnose

According to foodallergy.org, researchers show roughly 15 million Americans have food allergies. Nearly six million are children under the age of 18.

“Food allergy is very discreet. So you ingest the food, and then you have a reaction, usually immediately, almost within two hours and then the reaction goes away,” Allergist, Dr. Zach Jacobs said.

It’s a diagnosis that’s not easy to screen.

According to a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics, healthcare providers may not be able to distinguish between food allergies, lactose intolerance or a viral illness.

“There's no good screen for food allergy, meaning that we can't do a battery of food allergy tests and say you shouldn't eat this food and you should eat this food because there's a high rate of false positives with food allergy testing,” Dr. Jacobs said.

It’s something Emily Brown can relate to. Her oldest daughter has food allergies.

“She was diagnosed at age one, she was allergic to milk, eggs, wheat, soy and peanuts,” Brown said. “We managed in primary care for a year before we moved onto seeing an allergist, and one of the first things I knew when seeing an allergist was that some of the testing was done in primary care, came back with false negatives or they were not able to keep the testing.”

Learning more about her daughter’s allergies and what she couldn’t eat, Brown says she was surprised to see how much more expensive some of the food was.

“It was just a shock to our pocketbook,” she said.

That’s when Brown decided to do something about it, by opening a food allergy pantry to help low-income families, called Food Equality Initiative, Inc.

“We understand why the product costs what it does but it can be very challenging for families who have that diagnosis but then have that income barrier,” Brown said. “I lived it, I know what it's like for there to be no resource, for you to need help and to be a mother whose child is sick and to not be able to provide what your child needs. That is a feeling that no mother should ever have to feel. Ever.”

When it comes to allergies, one of the biggest recommendations is writing down any exposure your child had.

“Especially ingestion, ingestion is the most important route of exposure,” Dr. Jacobs said.