# Food allergy test



## malteseboy22 (May 25, 2010)

Hi girls,:smhelp:

I am at a loss right now has anyone had a food allergy test done via blood not the skin test done to their Malt.

I just need some type of feedback if it worked or it didnt since Max is such a picky eater I have already changed the food once and now have to transition again to Hills Diet Z/D which he turns his nose up at as told to me by my vet. He says be persistant with him he does not realize he will just not eat. Then he will throw up bile if I don't feed him. Any suggestions will be so much appreciated. :ThankYou:


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## iheartbisou (Feb 13, 2007)

What food have you tried other than the Hills? 

You say that you've only changed foods once, but I think usually it takes a couple of times to find a brand (at least in my experience it has) that they'll eat and that is good for them. 

Sometimes the shop or supplier will give you sample bags to try so you don't have to buy a new entire bag.


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## Maidto2Maltese (Oct 19, 2004)

We had a gal on our pet diabetes board whose little doxie was having terrible problems with allergies...which in turn was having impact on his diabetes regulation. She had the RAST ( think that's the right thing) done and she found the chicken which she thought she was doing good by feeding ( home cooking) was a high allergen. other things came up as well and each was described as to severity ( highly allergic to mild reaction) . I believe test cost about $175 where she lives. ( AZ?)

Once results came in she adjusted diet to eliminate the 'culprits" and there was a marked improvement in his condition. She did say ( and some others commented as well, that some vets don't feel these are accurate enough, but others such as her particular vet felt in regard to food the test was very helpful. In addition to the chicken some grains were high on the allergen list as well.


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

the best test for allergies is varl, heska (?), greer - our derm uses varl but these are for environmental. The only true food allergy test is food elimination diet. 

Can you home cook? 

My dog itched like crazy on ultra z/d but it works for some and my dog that itched like crazy did not have allergies as it was used for pancreatitis issue. 

Have you tried foods like natural balance fish and sweet potato, venison and sweet potato or duck and potato as those are all pretty limited and the only concern would be flaxseed in them as some allergy dogs are allergic to flaxseed. 

I have done two allergy testing tests one with full spectrum lab and one with biomedical and this was before going to dermatologist. 

The biggest allergents are chicken and beef. 

Sorry you are going through this as allergies are very frustrating as have been dealing with them for 6 years now 

I will link info i wrote on allergies if i can find it


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

here is some info on this link

http://spoiledmaltese.com/forum/52-maltese-health-behavior/105871-atopica.html

i see you are in canada and I am on [email protected]. Monica Segal is in canada and she is a nutritionist so you may want to go to yahoogroups.com and join k9kitchen and maybe she can help you construct a diet as she graduated from Guelph university in animal nutrtion


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## Snowbody (Jan 3, 2009)

Saw this article about allergy testing:
Allergy Testing & Immunotherapy in Dogs
I don't know about pet food allergy tests, but know a lot about people food allergy (I produce videos on them) and the RAST test is just one indicator of allergies. For people you take a history, skin tests and RAST test to get the best picture. You can get false negatives on a RAST so you really need to combine all to figure it out. You could try an elimination diet by prepping or buying some food without the main food you think is the allergen and see if there's a difference.


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## malteseboy22 (May 25, 2010)

Thank you all for your feedback, I am going to go to another vet (holistic) next week and homecook and see what supplements I need to give. Since he hates the food and the vet I have now knows nothing about home cooking so any advice on the home cooking would be great. Big hug thanks for the feedback again, it gives me a little hope.


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## jmm (Nov 23, 2004)

The blood test for food allergens is not terribly accurate. I had it done on my IBD dog and it was absolutely WRONG. Waste of money. A TRUE home-made elimination diet (one carb, one protein) is the only proper way to address this. Your dog also needs to have a bile acid test to rule out concurrent liver disease.


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## 2maltesebabies (Jul 21, 2010)

I actually just got the results back today for my little girl. She was having a ton of problems including kidney problems. The test came back that is allergic to almost everything. It was a great thing that we did and we can't be happier to finally know what she is allergic to and try to avoid them. We used spectrum labs from our vet. Any questions i would be happy to answer them/.


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

malteseboy22 said:


> Thank you all for your feedback, I am going to go to another vet (holistic) next week and homecook and see what supplements I need to give. Since he hates the food and the vet I have now knows nothing about home cooking so any advice on the home cooking would be great. Big hug thanks for the feedback again, it gives me a little hope.


we did food elimination diet with dermatologist and since i had used too many proteins we did pinto beans and white potato for 12 weeks and her itching was a little less but not totally gone. Food allergy is maybe 10% of all allergies. 90% of the time it is environmental but a limited ingredient food does help with a dog with allergies 

They will have you do one novel protein never fed and one novel carb never fed - just avoid chicken or beef. Things like lamb, venison, goat, pinto beans, turkey, cod, tilapia. Carb - sweet potato, white potato 

you do this for 12 weeks straight. you can use a baby multi vitamin but i chose not to as 12 weeks I did not feel would hurt them to be really strict. After 12 weeks you start adding back one thing at a time for a two week period to see if any reaction. If reaction you write down and eliminate it 

I have the info from derm and can fax as it lists all the proteins and carbs you can use- just pm and i will fax to you


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

jmm said:


> The blood test for food allergens is not terribly accurate. I had it done on my IBD dog and it was absolutely WRONG. Waste of money. A TRUE home-made elimination diet (one carb, one protein) is the only proper way to address this. Your dog also needs to have a bile acid test to rule out concurrent liver disease.


Totally agree  it is a waste for food alone but for environmental allergies it can be good but ONLY if you are going to do hyposensitization shots otherwise a waste as well - I was out $400 for each one we did and honestly they did not help at all and I would have to do again if doing hyposensitization shots as derm does not deem the two the vet ordered reliable


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

2maltesebabies said:


> I actually just got the results back today for my little girl. She was having a ton of problems including kidney problems. The test came back that is allergic to almost everything. It was a great thing that we did and we can't be happier to finally know what she is allergic to and try to avoid them. We used spectrum labs from our vet. Any questions i would be happy to answer them/.


we used full spectrum lab too  derm says not reliable  best ones are heska, greer and varl for allergy testing but only for environmental


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## bellaratamaltese (May 24, 2006)

Caira just had the skin testing done yesterday and came back allergic to grasses and molds. She starts the hyposensitization therapy next week.


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

let me know how it goes stacy as that is the one thing i have not done with my Dee Dee as some told me it could make them worse but sorry I did not try it 6 years ago  

I know it takes up to a year so please keep us posted if she gets less itchy after shots

did they have to do both sides of her as derm told me she does not like to do skin testing in toy breeds bc they have to shave both sides and much harder on them  Plus she said with dd it would be torture to take her off steroids for 6 weeks  to do skin testing


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## bellaratamaltese (May 24, 2006)

dwerten said:


> let me know how it goes stacy as that is the one thing i have not done with my Dee Dee as some told me it could make them worse but sorry I did not try it 6 years ago
> 
> I know it takes up to a year so please keep us posted if she gets less itchy after shots
> 
> did they have to do both sides of her as derm told me she does not like to do skin testing in toy breeds bc they have to shave both sides and much harder on them  Plus she said with dd it would be torture to take her off steroids for 6 weeks  to do skin testing


Honestly, I dont' know what is up with Caira. Now it's only her eyes that are itching but I'm beginning to think it's mental with her. The second I take the cone of, she is digging at her eyes. Put the cone back on and she is fine. Her skin isn't itching anymore and she's not doing any more licking/scratching than normal. No chewing the paws, etc. 

Only one side was shaved. Caira's a bigger girl at 7.3 lbs so don't know if that has something to do with only shaving one side. I don't even know if she was tested for food allergies, it wasn't mentioned in the results, just allergic to certain molds and grasses. I've already been dealing with Caira in a cone for well over 6-8 mos now - I can handle the taking a year to improve. I just want to be able to get the cone off of her eventually! I did a 3 mos trial of potato and rabbit and the derm said it wasn't a food allergy because there wasn't a complete improvement so she is now on NB sweet potato and fish, per the dermatologist recommendation. 

It's a long frustrating battle, that is for sure!!


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

wow so sorry stacy that is not fun - dd was in a cone for a little while after i used natural balance fish and sweet potato and natural balance venison and sweet potato - she was rubbing her face and eyes real bad. I took her off and she has been fine ever since and no cone. I think it was the flaxseed in it. 

have you tried home cooking a limited ingredient diet as that might help as alot of times the bag food can have dust mites in it too - just a thought to completely rule out food allergy 

again so sorry as allergies are so frustrating  I hope you figure it out soon


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

here is a pic of dd eyes when she went through this- she only rubbed eyes when i took cone off too  It took a while after stopping the food for it to stop too


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

stacy have you taken her to an opthamologist to have her eyes thoroughly examined to make sure nothing going on there?


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## bellaratamaltese (May 24, 2006)

dwerten said:


> stacy have you taken her to an opthamologist to have her eyes thoroughly examined to make sure nothing going on there?


My regular vet has stained her eyes and done a thorough exam - but she hasn't been to a ophthamologist. I'll talk to my vet about that!


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

bellaratamaltese said:


> My regular vet has stained her eyes and done a thorough exam - but she hasn't been to a ophthamologist. I'll talk to my vet about that!


you might want to do that as maybe she has something going on there if no other itching, licking, biting going on. The opthomologist has some better equipment to see things more thoroughly. Would not hurt as maybe she has ingrown eye lash or something like that - just a thought

http://www.petplace.com/dogs/entropion-in-dogs/page1.aspx

this is what made me think maybe eye lash issues


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## dwerten (Oct 6, 2007)

here is the one we went to - I think there is a link to your area but maybe check out links to see if anything sounds familiar

Animal Eye Clinic

I really liked her alot - she is very thorough spends alot of time with you and is very caring. If you are in the area maybe schedule with her and it is $160 for first appt


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## malteseboy22 (May 25, 2010)

Well I have gone ahead and did the blood test for food allergy, it takes 4 to 6 weeks to get back the results and it was 225 for the test. I did not do the enviornmental one as if this comes back with a food allergy then I know thats what it is I think the culprit is Chicken. So I want to make sure. But I have pet insurance so they cover this test and I only pay 40 out of pocket, so I just wanted to see what happens, it wasnt to invasive and I really did not want to do the skin test. But I also think its mental as she only scratches at home. When he is out not a scratch, at doggy day care not a scratch I just send him there to socilaze with the puppies...So i will let you all know what happens. Cheers Lynda


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## Nikki's Mom (Feb 13, 2008)

bellaratamaltese said:


> Honestly, I dont' know what is up with Caira. Now it's only her eyes that are itching but I'm beginning to think it's mental with her. The second I take the cone of, she is digging at her eyes. Put the cone back on and she is fine. Her skin isn't itching anymore and she's not doing any more licking/scratching than normal. No chewing the paws, etc.
> 
> Only one side was shaved. Caira's a bigger girl at 7.3 lbs so don't know if that has something to do with only shaving one side. I don't even know if she was tested for food allergies, it wasn't mentioned in the results, just allergic to certain molds and grasses. I've already been dealing with Caira in a cone for well over 6-8 mos now - I can handle the taking a year to improve. I just want to be able to get the cone off of her eventually! I did a 3 mos trial of potato and rabbit and the derm said it wasn't a food allergy because there wasn't a complete improvement so she is now on NB sweet potato and fish, per the dermatologist recommendation.
> 
> It's a long frustrating battle, that is for sure!!


Stacy if she is allergic to molds and is still rubbing her eyes, you might want to consider a home mold test.


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