Hair Mineral Analysis

**MomK** · 09-22-2008, 06:41 PM

Has anyone ever had a hair mineral analysis? I'm thinking of having this done for DS10. He suffers terribly from allergies and asthma, and my co-worker told me this would help. You take hair samples, send them to a lab, and the lab analyzes them for mineral deficiencies.

In addition, we've just had the allergy testing done, and have to decide whether to do the allergy shots. I'm not against the shots, I just don't want him to have to go through that if there's something else that will help.

He also has asthma, takes a Flovent inhaler 2X per day, and has an albuterol inhaler for emergencies.

**voodidit** · 09-28-2008, 01:34 PM

I've never hear of the hair thing. A simple blood test can give you the same results and much quicker.

I had the allergy tests and took shots for quite a while. They helped me a lot but I still have a lot of allergies at certain times of the year.

**mom2three** · 10-05-2008, 04:11 PM

Not all blood tests will give you all minerals - some are difficult to test anyway. and levels differe between things linke bone, blood, tissues, etc. We just had a hair mineral analysis done for my daughter. It confirmed a bunch of things we knew like that she has low molydenum and cobalt levels (corresponds to B12) - makes sense because she is sulfite sensitive, she has low copper levels and doesn't do well with histamine containing foods or the amines in chocolate, she is low zinc, low selenium, and a bunch of other things. When I asked my doc to test zinc levels in my kids because they weren't growing, he didn't - it wasn't a standard test - suggested he test hemoglobin (iron) instead. My daughter also showed high lead and aluminum - the lead was suspected due to our last house. For what little it costs do do a hair mineral analysis and the info it can provide, it is reasonable to do.

My middle daughter had asthma and took up to ten nebuliser treatments a day (8 rescue, 2 steroid) until I cut dairy - I attribute to both an allergy to dairy (which she did not test positive to on the skin test) and a calcium-magnesium imbalance (magnesium relaxes smooth muscles and has been studied to help asthmatics).

Since we have changed our diet and supplemented some, the health of the whol family has improved. I would also suggest you try giving your son probiotics - read The Probiotic Revolution if you want the science to convince you.

Amanda (Ph.D. Biochemist)