Allergies affect 20% of the population with symptoms ranging from mild hayfever to potentially life-threatening food allergies. Allergic reactions occur when your body identifies a normally harmless substance (allergen) as dangerous and begins to produce antibodies. These antibodies are immunoglobulin E (IgE), and when these bind to allergens they cause the release of inflammatory chemicals such as histamine – which cause allergic reactions.

Each allergen that causes an allergic response will have a specific group of IgE antibodies to combat it. People with a high total of IgE usually suffer from multiple allergies. The more IgE antibodies there are against an allergen, the more sensitised they are and the greater the risk of developing an allergy.

Sensitisation is when your immune system produces IgE antibodies in response to an allergen. It is the levels of allergen specific antibodies that the Allergyfocus test measures. Some people may be sensitised to an allergen (and therefore have detectable IgE antibodies targeting it) but never show any symptoms of an allergy. Whilst high levels of IgE cannot predict if you will experience symptoms or how severe they may be, an IgE test provides strong evidence for the presence or absence of allergies and has become a vital tool in modern allergy diagnosis.

The finger prick self-sample blood collection kit is not suitable for use by anyone under the age of 10. Children between 10 and 16 using the finger prick self-sample blood collection kit should be supervised by an adult.

All orders placed before 12pm BST Monday to Friday are, where possible, dispatched same day via Royal Mail (or courier for multiple kit purchases) to UK addresses. Any orders placed after 12pm BST Friday will be dispatched to the UK address on the following Monday.

Your results are given in kUa/L – kilounits of allergen-specific IgE per litre. You will receive a total IgE (tIgE) measurement, which is a measure of the total amount of IgE against all allergens in your sample. You will also receive measurements for each allergen that you have reliably detectable amounts of specific IgE for. The higher these measurements are, the more sensitised you are to an allergen. In the details of the report, you will see both molecular components of allergens (part of a whole allergen) and extracts of allergens.

Remember that whilst these results are a useful guideline, they don’t by themselves constitute an allergy diagnosis. You should always consult with a healthcare professional if you are concerned about anything in your report. Due to high variability on values below 1kUA/L we recommend that anything below 1kUa/L should not be considered as clinically relevant.

Whilst the Allergyfocus test contains a wide array of allergens, you may be sensitised to other allergens not included in this test.

Sensitisation to allergens in some individuals may be dependent on other factors of an individual’s immune response or whether the allergen has been cooked/digested. These circumstances are not incorporated by the test.

IgE levels also slowly decrease when allergens have not been encountered for some time, so any foods that you have been strictly avoiding may show lower results than expected. There are also some non-IgE mediated allergies (though rare) and intolerances that are not covered by the Allergyfocus test.

If you have never encountered an allergen then you will have never produced specific antibodies for that allergen. For example, you could be allergic to bee venom but if you have never been stung you will not have antibodies for it.

This test alone should not be used as a diagnosis. You should consult with a healthcare professional before making major lifestyle or healthcare changes.

Once a sample has been received by our lab, the test process takes up to 3 working days. This excludes weekends and bank holidays.