When you hear of a condition like IBS, it brings up bathroom-related images and thoughts of stomach pain and other discomforts. These are all accurate to IBS, but other than trying to minimize symptoms, a lot of people never look beyond the diagnosis in order to manage symptoms effectively. Now you can get the support of a food intolerance test and get access to some helpful information to manage symptoms effectively.
IBS and the food intolerance test
IBS is when your large intestine is irritated, and it creates the symptoms of stomach discomfort and digestion problems. This is an ongoing condition, and it can vary in the strength of each flare-up. What experts are starting to discover, however, is that the support system may lie in the levels of IgG in the blood, and that’s where the food intolerance test steps in.
When you get a standard intolerance test, the levels of IgG in your blood are tested against a series of possible intolerances. The height of those levels is what determines what you are intolerant to.
When blood levels of IBS-suffering patients (during a flare-up) were measured, they were found to have high IgG levels that matched those found to have food intolerances.
Scientists and researchers had the idea to put those with IBS on an elimination diet and specifically take out foods that would boost the IgG levels in the blood. When patients kept to the diet without exceptions for a few months, a lot of IBS patients found that their symptoms were lower than average, and they also less aggressive flare-ups if they did occur.
It could be the helping hand
While getting an intolerance test could be helpful, it’s not intended to be a cure.
Specialists believe that living on a diet that deliberately keeps IgG blood levels down can be supportive of reducing symptoms and even helping reduce flare-up of symptoms, to begin with. With more time and research, perhaps more information can come from an intolerance test specific to IBS.
If you’re interested in having this help you out, you will have to take the test. The test is going to be personalized to your sample and the foods that elevate your IgG levels in particular. Some foods will most likely be worse than others from person to person, so it’s important that the test results that you use to inform an elimination diet are your own (i.e. don’t eliminate foods from your diet based on generic test results or someone else’s test results). Your symptoms and flare-ups are as unique as you are, so you’ll want your own results to help monitor and minimize them.
IBS may be a lifelong condition, but knowing that you’ve got personalized and supportive tools available to help minimize your symptoms makes it much more manageable on a daily basis. Who knows, maybe a cure is in the future too. For now, put the intolerances test to use and keep your symptoms in check.
