This is a PSA to everyone ordering food panels because they “don’t want to miss an allergy.” To those of you who order these, most of the time all you do is limit their diet unnecessarily and scare the patient. Please refer them to an allergist for evaluation, or better yet, perform a history to determine which foods they reacted to. Prescribe an EpiPen if the history is consistent with an immediate reaction (IgE-mediated food allergy) and please let us do the rest.
Sincerely,
An A/I fellow who’s tired of explaining why these are bad