DS (17) had milk and egg allergies as a baby (confirmed by an obvious reaction to milk when weaning and then by NHS prick tests), but he had grown out of them by the age of 6 (confirmed by NHS challenge tests). He has had a normal diet ever since. However, he has also had eczema on and off since birth and has never grown out of that. He manages it (badly) using prescribed creams but mostly just lives with it and often has visible scratches on his neck which look very sore. There is no single obvious trigger. He is very sporty, and it does sometimes flare up after getting hot and sweaty, but not always, and sometimes it just flares randomly, or is constant. He will soon turn 18 and be off to uni, so while I still have him under my wing I've been thinking we should get his allergies tested again. I doubt the GP will make an nhs referral without some clearer observational evidence of a suspected cause (my experience is that the NHS don't test for all allergens, just the ones the gp asks them to test for). I'm willing to pay for private allergy testing to test for the most common allergens. However, there are warnings about private allergy testing, and I don't know how to tell a good clinic from a bad one. Is there some sort of accredidation I should look for? Any recommendations? We're in the Twickenham area of SW London.
(p.s. I know he could just give up various foods for a week or two to test whether there is an improvement, but he doesn't have the patience and enjoys his food too much).