The Allergy Audit

How to complete The Allergy Audit

Guessing at what triggers your sniffles, rashes, or stomach trouble often means avoiding the wrong things for years. A professional allergy test gives you a real list of what your immune system reacts to, so you can target avoidance and treatment instead of eliminating foods at random.

1. See a GP or allergist and describe your symptoms, their timing, and suspected triggers.
2. Choose the right test: a skin-prick test for fast results on common allergens, or a blood (specific IgE) test if your skin or medications rule that out.
3. Stop antihistamines for the window your clinician specifies beforehand, since they can mask skin-test reactions.
4. Go through the test and have the doctor interpret the results with your symptom history, not in isolation.
5. Build an avoidance and treatment plan around the confirmed triggers, and ask about an epinephrine auto-injector if anything serious shows up.

Tips

• A positive test alone isn't a diagnosis; it only matters alongside real-world reactions, so don't cut foods on a result you've never reacted to.
• Avoid at-home or hair-analysis 'allergy kits'; they're unreliable.
• Bring a symptom diary; patterns help the clinician target which allergens to test.

What counts as done

You've completed a clinician-administered skin-prick or IgE blood test and reviewed the results with them.