Everyone has been sharing such awesome info on our community! This question has come up a few times so I wanted to start a thread and hope everyone stops by with their thoughts!
What is the difference between a Food Elimination Diet and Desensitization?
Elimination diet is for suspected food allergies. An elimination diet is designed to detect and identify sensitivities to certain foods. Here, the suspected allergen (type of food) is totally eliminated from the diet for a period of time (from two weeks to two months) and observations are made to see if the symptoms are resolved during this period. And if resolved, the ‘food’ is re introduced to see if symptoms re occur, termed as challenge-dechallenge-rechallenge (CDR).
A food diary can help to make elimination diet more accurate and successful. Keeping track of the food one eats and the symptoms helps to look for patterns. It can also help identify possible sources of cross-contamination, or other foods that may be contributing to the symptoms.
On the other hand, Desensitization or allergy immunotherapy works like vaccination. Very small amounts of the allergen are injected in gradually increasing doses, so that the body develops an immunity to the allergen, so that the person will have a reduced response or fewer allergic symptoms when he is exposed to these allergens again.
Elimination diet is for suspected food allergies. An elimination diet is designed to detect and identify sensitivities to certain foods. Here, the suspected allergen (type of food) is totally eliminated from the diet for a period of time (from two weeks to two months) and observations are made to see if the symptoms are resolved during this period. And if resolved, the ‘food’ is re introduced to see if symptoms re occur, termed as challenge-dechallenge-rechallenge (CDR).
A food diary can help to make elimination diet more accurate and successful. Keeping track of the food one eats and the symptoms helps to look for patterns. It can also help identify possible sources of cross-contamination, or other foods that may be contributing to the symptoms.
On the other hand, Desensitization or allergy immunotherapy works like vaccination. Very small amounts of the allergen are injected in gradually increasing doses, so that the body develops an immunity to the allergen, so that the person will have a reduced response or fewer allergic symptoms when he is exposed to these allergens again.
Hope this helped.