Quote:
> My 1 1/2 year old collie is plagued by some type of allergy. Her vet,
> before referring her to a specialist wants to switch her food to
> determine if she has a food allergy. However, the vet says that I have
> to have her on this new food diet for 3 months because it can take that
> long to determine if she does have a food allergy. She has been on this
> diet for a little over a month and I see no signs of relief. Has anyone
> else gone through this? Did it take up to 3 months to determine your
> dogs food allergy?
> Julie
Julie,
Yes it does take that long. Unfortunately it often takes
that long to see if the problem is a real allergy. There are two
different things here. We often confuse a food allergy with a food
intolerance. They are not quite the same thing. A food intolerance
which is what the vet is guessing your pet has, is a less ***
reaction to some allergen. A true food allergy is quite dramatic and
involves serious immediate and sometimes fatal reactions to an allergen.
The objective of the food is to first find a food which appears to
resolve the problems, minimum time for this is about 10 weeks.
The second objective is to allow you to add certain foods back into
the diet. It will take baout two weeks minimum for each food you add
back to make sure the animal can tolerate the new food.
Some veterinarians use an Elisa (enzyme linked immunoadsorbent
assay) for testing allergies. These *** tests are unfortunately
very innaccurate for food allergies. They do prove negatives, but are
worthless for positives. That means that if the animal comes back
negative (no allergy) to a particular antigen, you have a fairly
good chance that the animal is truly not allergic to the antigen.
On the other hand if the animal comes back positve (allergic)
the test is usually wrong.
You should also note that the vast majority of allergies
prove to be non food related, dust, pollens, grasses etc.
Best Of Luck and hang in there, Time Patience and Perserverance
will accomplish all things.
Steve Crane
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