food mix fx5 allergies

The commonly referred to food mixed FX5 allergy refers to a positive result of the "Food Group Specific IgE Antibody Screening Panel (FX5)", which only indicates that you are at risk of one or more IgE-mediated allergies to the six most common food allergens: milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts, soybeans, and fish. It does not mean that you are allergic to all these six foods, nor does it mean that you will definitely have an allergic reaction after eating these foods.

To put it bluntly, FX5 is a low-cost preliminary screening tool. After all, it will cost two or three times more to check the specific IgE of six kinds of food for you individually. In normal physical examination or when food allergies are suspected, FX5 should be checked first. A negative result can basically rule out the risk of these six kinds of immediate allergies, and it is very cost-effective. But don’t scare yourself to death if you really find out it’s positive. I just saw a parent of a 3-year-old baby last week. With the report showing that the FX5 value was 2.7kU/L, I stopped giving eggs, milk, and wheat to the baby for almost half a month. The already thin baby doesn’t even like to eat anymore, and his face is sallow. Later, IgE tests were performed on each of the children for individual foods. Only peanut values ​​were slightly elevated. After asking, I found out that the baby had never had any reactions such as rash or vomiting when eating peanut butter. Finally, an oral provocation test was performed and there was no problem at all. Just be careful not to let the baby choke on eating whole peanuts. All other foods were banned. The parents were almost crying at the time. They said they would have stopped eating the food if they had known better.

There are actually two different tendencies in the clinical treatment of FX5 positivity. One group of doctors is more cautious. They believe that as long as FX5 is positive, even if there are no allergic symptoms for the time being, it is recommended to check the six foods one by one, and do a provocation test if necessary. After all, some hidden allergies will not cause rashes immediately. Long-term exposure may slowly induce allergic rhinitis, chronic urticaria and even asthma. Especially for people with allergies themselves, there is no harm in being more careful. The other school's view is more relaxed. After all, according to current clinical data, the proportion of "clinical tolerance" cases that are IgE positive but have no problem actually eating can reach more than 40%. As long as you don't experience itching, wheezing, wheezing, or stomach pain immediately after eating something, you can eat normally and just keep a food diary. It's not too late to stop eating when you really have a reaction. Blindly avoiding food can easily lead to malnutrition, especially for growing children.

Speaking of this, there is another common misunderstanding. Many people think that the higher the FX5 value, the more serious the allergy will be, but this is not necessarily true. The value only represents the corresponding antibody concentration in your body, and there is no absolute correlation with the severity of the allergic reaction. I have seen people with FX5 values ​​as high as 6, drinking milk and eggs every day without any problems, and I have also seen people whose values ​​just passed the 0.35kU/L critical value. After eating a bite of peanuts, their throats were swollen and they went to the emergency room. The individual differences are so great that you can’t imagine. There are also people with FX5-positive reports who say they are intolerant to wheat and feel bloated after eating noodles. That is basically confusing the concept - FX5 tests for IgE-mediated immediate allergies, which are the type that will react within minutes to hours after eating. If you feel uncomfortable after a day or two after eating, you are either lactose intolerant, gluten sensitive, or simply indigestion, which is not the same thing as the allergies tested by FX5. Don't make mistakes.

To be honest, I personally don’t recommend that people who have no allergic symptoms routinely check for FX5. In many cases, it is just to cause anxiety for themselves. After all, allergies are very individual in nature. The report is dead, but the person is alive. Whether you feel comfortable after eating something is always more valuable than a cold numerical value. If you are really found to be positive for FX5, don’t panic, let alone put all 6 foods on the blacklist. Try them one by one, and eat if you don’t have any reaction. If you do have a reaction, you should avoid it. It’s not like you lose nutrition just for the sake of a preliminary screening result, right?