Our office has a traditional (as opposed to conventional) approach to Environmental Illness. We believe that multiple adverse factors (or agents) acting synergistically in the same patient operate to produce chronic unwellness or disease states. To discover these factors, we use a variety of tests, some of them concurrently, since no test can be 100% accurate. We often use measures of exposure such as: allergy intra-dermal (epicutaneous) skin testing; blood RAST (
Alletess Medical Laboratory); antibody levels (
IGeniX, Inc); ELISA (
Elisa Act); exposure challenges, levels of toxins or irritant, such as heavy metals or organic toxin levels in blood or urine; urinary mycotoxins (
Realtime Laboratory); metabolic effects of toxins or of physiologic destabilizers, such as 24 hour urinary porphyrins (
Metametrix Clinical Laboratory); oxidative stress test (
Genova Diagnostics); microbial organic acid test (
Great Plains Laboratory); C-Reactive protein, sedimentation rate, serum ferritin, or other measures of inflammation (
LabCorp).
Whenever possible, we try to use commercial laboratories contracted with insurance companies to minimize the out-of-pocket costs to patients. However, conventional commercial laboratories often have low sensitivity or an unrealistically wide reference range so that they will not correctly indicate abnormalities. Some conventional laboratories actually perform their tests incorrectly or label their tests in a misleading way. In order to be more helpful to our patients, we try (admittedly not always successfully) to select laboratories and tests which have high sensitivity and a reasonable degree of selectivity in defining a particular status. Consequently, it may be necessary to use non-contracted laboratories and tests resulting in an out-of-pocket expense for patients. We expect it to be the responsibility of the patient to determine if an expected test will be covered by their insurance contract or to pay the performing laboratory in advance when the specimen is submitted. Patients who have flexibility in their health care and a willingness (and ability) to pay for some uncovered services make the fastest and more complete recovery. However, we will try to work with families having limitations in their out-of-pocket expenses.