Is a food allergy blood test reliable for a dog?

Question

Lauren Adelman · Answer

No, blood tests for food allergies are not reliable. In fact, there is really no test for food allergies in dogs and cats that is reliable. There's a lot marketed out there like blood tests, salivary tests, all sorts of things, genetic tests. They are not reliable for food allergies. Derm allergies, so skin allergies, that's different. There are certain tests that may be more reliable in that instance, as well as intradermal skin testing, but for food allergies, the only way to diagnose food allergies in a dog or cat is to produce a food elimination trial. So what that means is that you have to choose a hypoallergenic diet. Now, dogs and cats typically develop allergies to the protein in the diet, despite what you might read. It's usually not the grains, it's usually not the corn. It's the protein source, with chicken and beef being the most common. And so a food trial with a hypoallergenic diet is either gonna be a diet that is a novel protein, so a protein your pet hasn't seen before, which can be quite hard in this day and age, or what we call a hydrolyzed protein, which is a protein that's been broken down into its amino acid building blocks so the immune system won't recognize it as foreign. If you wanna hear more about that, I'm happy to answer another question.

Ashley Bourgeois · Answer

Is a food allergy blood test reliable for a dog? Not at this point Unfortunately, you have to do an elimination diet trial with prescription based food or a home-cooked diet to rule in or out a food allergy There are blood tests out there, but we don't know how to really trust those results at this point It would be great when that is an easy thing to do But even with environmental allergies where we sometimes use things like serum tests We don't diagnose the disease based on it a normal dog You can collect a blood sample and they'll probably have some elevations But if they're not clinical for it, then it doesn't really matter as far as a diagnosis So it's not ever really a diagnostic test. We rule in or out allergies by eliminating other causes So at this point it's going to be more worth your money To work with your vet to do an elimination diet trial to rule in or out food allergy And the serum test salivary test all the different tests that you can find out there. There's so many of them Don't have the research to really validate that. It's truly a good test to run So I would put the finances towards things we know are trustworthy and reliable even though they're sometimes not as easy Like an elimination diet trial so we can really figure out what's going on with your dog

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"Is a food allergy blood test reliable for a dog?"