New Patients Welcome

Functional Medicine · Laguna Niguel, CA

Food Sensitivities Treatment in Laguna Niguel, CA

A food sensitivity panel that looks at IgG or IgA is not an allergy test. Allergy, the IgE kind, is a different medical issue, with different risks. This page explains how those antibodies are discussed, and why an elimination trial is a time-limited experiment you help design, not a lifelong ban from one printout. For patients coming from Laguna Niguel, the office is about 8 miles away, 15–25 minutes, by Crown Valley Parkway or Alicia Parkway toward Mission Viejo.

IgG and IgA are not an IgE allergy

IgE allergy can involve hives, swelling, wheezing, or anaphylaxis. That is a medical emergency pattern and belongs with a physician or allergist. IgG and IgA panels ask a quieter question about immune reactivity on a blood test. FRI will not call a high IgG result an allergy.

You might feel bloated, foggy, or achy hours after a meal, with no dramatic swelling. That history can justify a conversation. It does not prove a food is unsafe. Dr. Sani Kohen, D.C. and Dr. Tara Kohen, D.C. start with what you actually eat, not with a ban list.

A panel beside the food you already eat

Food sensitivity testing reports IgG or IgA reactivity to specific foods. A high bar next to a food you never eat is easy to overread. A high bar next to a food you eat daily, followed by symptoms you can time, is more interesting. The panel is a prompt, not a verdict.

Celiac disease, true food allergy, and eosinophilic disease are physician diagnoses. Functional Medicine does not replace that workup. If wheat makes you acutely ill, you need medical evaluation before anyone talks about a sensitivity chart. Bring those records if they exist.

Elimination trials are experiments, not life sentences

If a food is removed, the trial has a start, a length, and a planned return. You track symptoms you named in advance, such as bloating or a rash, rather than every mood of the day. One test does not create a permanent forbidden list.

The gut health page explains when a stool test or a breath test should come before another food list. Pulling foods out while an overgrowth or an inflammatory bowel diagnosis goes unaddressed can make you smaller-plated and no clearer. GI-MAP stool testing is one of those earlier questions when the history fits.

How nutrition follows the experiment

Nutrition and supplementation replaces what you removed so the trial does not become a low-protein, low-fiber accident. There is no brand protocol and no supplement dose here. Foods come back unless a physician has told you they cannot.

Functional medicine at FRI does not replace a primary physician, endocrinologist, gastroenterologist, or mental health clinician. Chiropractic Sports Medicine and Neuromuscular Rehabilitation stay available if joint pain, not food, is the reason you came in. A food panel will not be used to explain that pain by default.

What to expect when you are seen for Food Sensitivities

A complimentary 20-minute consultation can decide whether a panel is even useful. FRI is out of network, offers a superbill, and accepts HSA and FSA funds. The schedule is Monday–Thursday, 9–6.

If you test, you review the chart next to a food log. Any elimination is short and planned with a reintroduction. You should not expect a lifelong menu from a single draw.

Fees and the shape of follow-up

Out of network, superbill, HSA and FSA. Same policy as the rest of the county. We recheck findings instead of assuming a standing weekly visit. If you are better, the gap between visits should grow. If you are not, we change the plan or we say that someone else should see you.

Drs. Sani and Tara Kohen run the practice together. Read about them on the about page. The rooms, including the rehab space, are on the office page. No referral is required from a Laguna Niguel physician, and we will coordinate if you have one.

Master-planned hills, Salt Creek, and Crown Valley traffic

Laguna Niguel is hills and planned neighborhoods: Bear Brand, Kite Hill, the streets above Crown Valley, and the parks along Salt Creek. The walking is rarely flat. Youth sports and weekend rounds of golf share the calendar with freeway jobs north of here. Knees notice the downhills. Low backs notice the car. Necks notice the laptop that follows the commute. We use those specifics in the exam instead of a checkbox that says active.

Salt Creek and the regional park give people a place to walk that is not a treadmill. If walking helps your pain or provokes it, we want to know which path. A loop that is fine on the flat portion and painful on the return grade is a clue, especially for spinal stenosis patterns and for hip pain.

A short trip that is still worth doing on purpose

From most of Laguna Niguel you reach La Alameda by Crown Valley Parkway or Alicia Parkway. About 8 miles, often 15 to 25 minutes outside the Crown Valley rush. The address is 26400 La Alameda, Suite 100, Mission Viejo, CA 92691. Park at the building. Hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 to 6. Being close is an advantage. It also makes it easy to treat the clinic like a drop-in chiropractic stop. That is not how this office works.

Book enough time for an exam, not a crack on the way to an errand. The complimentary 20-minute consultation exists so you can meet the doctors before a longer visit. Call (949) 312-1754. If you are coming from the south end of town near the 73, say so when you schedule. The return toward the toll road in the afternoon is the slow direction.

What we end up working on with Niguel patients

Hill neighborhoods send us knee pain, plantar fasciitis, and low back pain. Desk-plus-commute weeks send neck pain and headaches. Functional movement screening is a plain way to see which basic patterns are limited before they become an injury story. DNS-based exercise is one way we retrain trunk control when the hills expose it.

Parents in these neighborhoods also ask about energy, cycles, and digestion while they are in the car for everyone else's sports. Hormonal imbalance and gut health are separate problems with their own exams. Labs are chosen from the history. Start from the Laguna Niguel chiropractor page if you want the full local map.

Questions patients ask

Is a high IgG result a food allergy?

No. IgE allergy is a different medical issue and can be dangerous. IgG and IgA results are not that diagnosis, and FRI will not treat them as one. Hives, swelling, or trouble breathing need urgent medical care, not a sensitivity panel. Bring any allergist records so the two conversations stay separate.

Do I have to avoid every food that flags?

No. A long ban list from one panel is not the plan. FRI looks at what you eat, which symptoms you can time, and which results are noise. An elimination trial, if you choose one, is discussed with you and has an end. Foods are reintroduced unless your physician has a medical reason to keep one out.

Should I do a stool test first?

Sometimes. If bloating, diarrhea, or constipation dominates, a GI-MAP or a breath test may answer a clearer question than another food list. The gut health page lays out that choice. A sensitivity panel is not the default first kit. You should hear why this test was picked over the others.

Can food sensitivity testing explain joint pain?

Maybe as a hypothesis, not as a conclusion. Joint pain has mechanical causes that Chiropractic Sports Medicine and Neuromuscular Rehabilitation are built to examine. A food panel does not replace that exam, and it does not replace rheumatology if you have an autoimmune diagnosis. Functional medicine at FRI does not replace those clinicians.

Related care for Laguna Niguel

Food Sensitivities is handled at the Mission Viejo clinic, not in a satellite office in Laguna Niguel. The related pages below stay on that same visit and add the methods or neighboring problems that usually come up in the history.

  • Laguna Niguel chiropractor

    How people from Laguna Niguel reach 26400 La Alameda and what the three pillars cover.

  • Food Sensitivities clinical overview

    The non-geographic condition page, if you want the clinic-wide explanation without the drive.

  • Functional Medicine

    The pillar this problem sits in at Functional Restoration Institute.

  • Gut Health in this city

    Digestion problems rarely arrive as one tidy symptom. Bloating, stool changes, and food reactions can travel together or take turns. This page.

  • Leaky Gut in this city

    People say leaky gut when they mean the gut barrier might be letting more through than it should. The plainer name is.

  • SIBO in this city

    Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth means microbes are fermenting food higher up than they should, which can bring bloating, gas, and stool changes..

  • Chronic Inflammation in this city

    Inflammation is a process your body uses, not a personality and not a mood. It can be useful while you heal and.

  • Food Sensitivity Testing

    Food sensitivity testing at Functional Restoration Institute looks at IgG and IgA antibodies to foods. It is not an allergy test, and.

Talk with the doctors before you commit to care

The complimentary 20-minute consultation is at 26400 La Alameda, Suite 100, Mission Viejo. Call (949) 312-1754.

Functional Restoration Institute serves patients across Orange County from our Mission Viejo clinic, including Laguna Niguel and surrounding Orange County communities.