Food Intolerances, Sensitivities, Allergies

[Friday]

I didn't want to thread jack another post (yes I did, badly) so I figured I'd come start a new one.

I used to eat everything. From crickets on a stick to mac'n'cheese, home cooking to haute cuisine, microwave boxed food & cup noodles to spend all day cooking for 1 meal. I grew up traveling all over the world / at home pretty much just picked an ethnicity to cook tonight. I trained in Italian cooking, but could also do much of the Med, Near East, & Far East. Loooooooved food. Past tense.

About a year into this most recent upswing, and I started getting sick all the time. Figured it was just stress. It was, but not the way I thought. I can't eat dairy anymore. Not just lactose, but all the sugars, proteins, and lipids make me violently ill. Eggs now, too. And unfermented soy will trigger my period (4x a month? No problem! Yes. Problem). Thanks, body. Just what I needed during this difficult time.

Anyone else develop food intolerance, sensitivities, or allergies?

 

[The Albatross]

Yup, I am allergic to over 240 some odd substances or environmental things. I have been screened for auto immune and so far nothing. I skew further allergic testing as well. I have had runs at gluten free, sugar free... over the last decade but because the body has a finite number of histamine responses and the reactions are grouped... it changes seasonally. I am, according to my allergists (whom I've fired now) "the proverbial canary in the coalmine". Nice pat phrase and witty but it doesn't do shit for me.

I get an inflammatory response rather than anaphylaxis or asthma. There was one forum member here who had a rare disease with symptomology like mine though we are not exactly the same. Alex, Icon Nikon.

I have never found a list of histamine grouped reactivity except latex, bananas, chestnuts, kiwi, avocado and tomato - all in one histamine group and all that I'm allergic to. I surely would like to see one as I am allergic to 59 of 60 environmental allergies as well as foods, dyes, and medicines.

 

[The Albatross]

Relate to the "loved food" past tense as well. I wish I was an air fern now. (Requiring water and sunlight) as even after consulting several doctors and several more dieticians... I'm too sensitive to environmental and too full of blood histamine (2546 when normal range is 0-150) to do an elimination diet.

 

[The Albatross]

Truth be told I was on a "white diet" before having my gall bladder out. I never felt so well before or since even post surgical. The second I started introducing more than mashed potatoes... wham. Dairy, corn, wheat and soy are my "worst" food offenders. I eliminated both cow and goat's milk but haven't as yet found a resource to try "sheep milk".

 

[franciemarnie]

Crickets on a stick? Wow!

I have loved Coca Cola all my life. Now I have one and my feet swell. No doubt sodium. I don't mind losing salty foods - but Coke? Wah!

I am going for physical soon just to check everything out.

I am sensitive to anything not easy to digest because at 57, after decades of my intestines mostly in the freeze part of fight or flight or freeze or collapse, my GI tract and digestion do not work well at all. It's very bad, and can be very painful.

Again, I don't mind losing the pizza, tacos, refined sugar...

But please God, let me have my Cokes back. More wahs.

 

[Friday]

It's crazy the number of foods dairy is in you'd never think of. Kosher foods ($$$) really help (God says No! seems to motivate people to at least be honest. Except for the people that want to be paid Kosher prices, and don't keep kosher/a lot of cross contamination). But, seriously. Wacky stuff I'd never thought would have dairy in it:
- most spices / spice blends (free flowing agent),
- prepacked / deli meats,
- anything that says "natural flavors", modified food starch, enzymes, starter cultures, mold inhibitors/preservatives, or free flow agent (so nearly all prepackaged food)
- things marked "dairy free" (this is my favorite one, come to find they meant whole-dairy free. But then go ahead and use dairy sourced ingredients: like lactic acid. Which can also be sourced from beets, but that's more expensive.
- tinned & frozen veggies
- medications

My local movie theatre has been letting me bring in popcorn & sodas, but management changed, and threw a fit that I was claiming their hypoallergenic "coconut oil based" topping made me sick. Because it had "no" butter in it. Actually, it had 3 dairy sources in it. The "imitation butter flavor" contained...wait for it...butter. As most do. The lactic acid was dairy sourced. And it had dairy sourced calcium in it. Yeah, dude. Like I said. It makes me sick. (And then oil mist / employees hand contaminate all the cups, bottled drinks, etc.).

 

[Friday]

I might actually die if I had to quit drinking coke / soda. I switched from Mtn.Dew (liquid sunshine). Not being over dramatic... Without a steady stream of caffeine I might not be capable of crossing the street on my own.

 

[FabulousEnding]

That happened to me too! I'm on an antidepressant, anti anxiety and low dose antipsychotic. My body is so stabile now that I can eat whatever the hell I want. I was diagnosed gluten, lactose intolerant and hypoglycemic (no caffeine, juice, soda, sugar, all the various forms of sugar, white bread, etc.) I couldn't eat anything, practically. For 14 years straight. And food was EXPENSIVE. But the meds have stabilized the non-stop fight or flight survival mechanism that wouldn't turn off and tormented me... Now I can eat everything. Grocery shopping is soooooo overwhelming now!! Too much choice lol. I haven't had choice in 14 years. :)

I started getting food sensitivities at about 9 years old when things with my mother really started getting bad, and I had them ever since... until now... Yay big pharma!! :D

 

[The Albatross]

Not drinking sodas I did not die. I did without caffeine for three years and am going back to that.

 

[The Albatross]

Hmm. Bully for you gal, no meds please.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I'm with Alby, no meds please! I don't care if they took away all my food sensitivities, I still wouldn't take them....and yes, I have a LOT of them! Gluten, corn, pepper, yeast.... I think there may be more. I am going back on my detox diet tomorrow. Yesterday was the last day of vacation and I need to get back to clean eating. It was the seafood broiled in wine that did me in....OMG my skin hurts SOOO bad right now it isn't even funny. I am just glad that I can actually say "yes, I AM allergic to alcohol!" and that will stop the weird looks I get when I say I can't drink. Ok, I could probably be ok with the hard stuff (from an allergy standpoint) but I just won't tell anyone that. Its nice to have a medical reason for not drinking as before I was looked at like I was a freak when I told people I never drink. I think I'll have to take a few allergy meds tonight so that I can stop the skin reaction. Ugh, so painful.

And allergists? I live in the sticks and medical resources here in any sort of specialty are SO outdated it isn't even funny. I went to an allergist who did the scratch tests on me and all came back negative, even to foods that I KNOW I have reactions to. Too much pepper and I WILL start wheezing, but it takes awhile. I don't have the sort of "bee sting reaction" that they typically look for. I was dismissed, and told it was all in my head....i.e. I am making connections and guesses that aren't really true. I call BS. I'd have to go down to the city to get tested. If my insurance covers it, I think I'll do it. Otherwise, I don't have the money for it, and right now, an elimination diet is working well. But, pepper is the only thing that makes me start wheezing. Everything else gives me bad skin reactions, with the exception of gluten that makes my whole body ache. Right now I look like a 15 year old with a horrendous case of acne. Its soooo embarrassing. No more fermented products! (They are the worst for me.)

 

[AlignUpABQ]

Our bodies take a hit when we go through shiz. Digestion is the first to go if we're stressed out most of the time. Makes it harder to digest the stuff that's more complicated and hard to digest.