Hemocode Intolerance Test

I was just made aware of this new test offered by our local pharmacy. They take a sample of your blood and test it against 250 foods/additives to check for intolerances. I've had migraine for 30 years and haven't found foods to be a trigger but thought it might be worth taking just to put my mind at ease for the current daily migraine I've been getting. Downside is it costs $450 and my medical insurance doesnt cover it. Has anyone had this done?

Hi

I paid £250 to the following company: http://www.yorktest.com/ about 4 years ago for food intolerance testing. I was very hopeful as it was a highly regarded organisation. I was advised to cut out gluten, dairy, yeast, almonds, and a couple of other things I now forget. I lost weight quickly, felt fantastic, my skin glowed and everyone commented on how well I looked. However, despite adhering to the diet rigidly for about 9 months, it made no bloody difference to my migraines. It was a lot of money but I would be willing to pay a lot more to get rid of my migraines.

I knew deep down it couldn't be that simple, otherwise all the migraine organisations would be advocating it, but I had to give it a go.

Ella

I wonder if there is some sort of food intolerance test insurance would cover though? Smaller scale and done by a doctor? Sounds interesting. I've heard of some folks doing something similar by doing one of those more restrictive elimination diets, which would cut out all the most common stuff like gluten, dairy, etc, and have you focus on real foods (so it would cut out all additives, artificial sweeteners, etc). I could see if you think thats a possibility the money could be worth it. For me however, since I have a condition different from migraine that isn't typically shown to be affected by food intolerance or dietary triggers, I have given up on those as being a cause for me (and they never helped--I cut out the migraine type triggers like cheese, sweeteners, and caffeine, gluten, dairy, and more). I am however pursuing dietary stuff for the bacterial overgrowth problem I am fighting in my small intestine. Currently doing lower fiber and fructose and such and it seems to help. Best wishes.

Hi Tam!
I was very much like you, I live in Canada and I found out about Hemocode at a Rexall. I looked into my coverage and found that I did not have coverage for the Hemocode. I was about to get it when I did more research. I like Ella, found the YorkTest FoodScan food intolerance test distributed by a Canadian Company called CanLabs. I believe this is the same test out of York that Ella took, although she would have to comment on that. I decided to go with the YorkTest as it seemed to have published studies done on it, something I could not find about Hemocode. It's been 4 months since I took the test and I can say that it helped me a bunch! I have only had a few migraines since I have started following the food diet, and those were more at the beginning. I have marked on my calendar the last time I had a migraine, and it was October 12th, 2011!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the frequency of my migraines before I eliminated my foods was about once a week, I know, not as severe as a lot of other people, but still terrible when they do happen. I cannot remember a time I did not have a Migraine, and here I am working on 3 months! I can say my triggers we're for sure food related, and I am so very glad I took that test as it helped me find out what they were, rather then guessing at them.

Let me know if you have any questions and I can do my best to answer them based on my experiencing.

-BigD!