These numbers seem to fluctuate through the years, so I am curious to learn more about why that happens. (I've never gotten clarification to my main question - if he has been exposed recently to an allergen, does his IgE level indicate that?)
What was clarified to me this trip is:
IgE levels don't indicate severity of reaction.
IgE levels tell us how likely it is you'll have a reaction.
The other interesting tid bit I learned is that skin tests have a 50/50 chance of producing a false positive or false negative (not very accurate).
A RAST test (done by drawing blood) measures the level of allergen-specific IgE in your blood. In other words, it measures the concentration of antibodies your body has created against a particular food allergen. What's interesting to note is, not everyone with the same IgE (or RAST score) will react in the same way to a food allergen. That's why those with a medium risk score have often been advised to minimize exposure to a specific allergen!
Here is what's known as a RAST scale, and how Beck has tested over the years to his severe allergies, which are peanut and walnut:
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