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Understanding food intolerance symptoms and how to get tested.

Food intolerances and allergies is a bit like the old ‘chicken and egg’ scenario trying to work out why you have reactions to certain foods, environmental variables and toxins. Is it because you have a leaky gut or has the food caused the leaky gut? Do you have parasites causing the issues or is it your nervous system out of balance? And do any of those things make you unwell or are they all connected? or is it your mindset and how you look at food and how you talk to your body? or is it that the foods you keep eating are causing your body harm?

Well you can go around the bend trying to work it out on your own. I highly recommend seeing a Bio-medical Doctor or Allergy Specialist to help you find of what your triggers are.  And working with myself to find your bottom beliefs and work on a Bio-individual eating plan low in irritant foods and high in natural healing foods.

As although the carrot or pecan on its own is not the reason your unwell it may be causing you more harm if you continue to eat it. Once your immune system is weak your leaky gut will start to form holes and allow food particle that are to big to get into the blood stream. Causing the body to attack that healthy carrot as if it was a bad bacteria and cause the body to be inflammed. If this continues for a long time without being healed, the body will continue attacking its own good cells not just the bad which is called an Auto-immune condition. Once this starts unless you are sealing and healing the gut, the holes will get bigger and the food you react to will grow and grow until your down to a few “safe foods” and then because your eating them daily the immune style gets weaker and attacks its self more causing more symptoms and more health issues. So really its not about what the food is, but how to heal your gut so you can enjoy all healthy foods again. Working with a good Doctor versed in food intolerance’s to heal your body whilst avoiding the high trigger foods is the key. Although through experience I recommend not removing all of your trigger foods, but to use the rotation method, as if you remove all those foods and only eat a few your body will become immune to those too. I not suggesting you eat foods causing you problems daily but if tomatoes are a really high allergen for you, just have then once a month or so to keep your body used to them and to keep the variety and colour and vitamins in your diet. Often on elimination diets you get very malnutrition and lack the nutrients your body need to heal it self and the brain is starved. But I do believe that if you have ‘leaky gut’ and those with any of the symptoms below have a ‘leaky gut’ of some degree, then limiting dairy to raw or organic and occasionally, only and if you can tolerate it without more symptoms. And strictly NO grains, dairy, sugars of any kind even “natural”, caffeine including chocolate and alcohol till your gut is healed as these foods will keep you from healing and set you back each time you indulge. To help you understand I have compiled a list of food reactions:

  • heart palpitations
  • increased heart rate
  • low blood pressure
  • high blood pressure
  • wheezing
  • allergic asthma
  • acne
  • weight gain and loss
  • excessive sweating
  • rashes
  • hives and welts
  • ADHD and behavioural issues
  • sensitivities to mossy bites
  • eczema
  • psoriasis
  • joint ache and swelling
  • fibromyalgia (muscle pain)
  • water retention-edema
  • week nails
  • hair loss and low growth
  • eye brow and lash loss
  • ear infections
  • mucous in nose ears and throat
  • blurred vision
  • spots and flickers in front of your eyes
  • swelling of eye lids
  • red sore scratchy dye eyes
  • sensitive to light
  • sneezing after food but do not have a cold
  • head aches
  • migraines
  • neck pain
  • smelly discharge and sweat
  • bumps on the back of your arms
  • runny nose
  • frequent colds (more than 1x a year)
  • frequent infections (more than 1x a year)
  • blocked nose
  • brain fog
  • body chills
  • body aches
  • stomach cramps
  • colic in babies (knees up to chest and screaming)
  • bloating
  • constipation- stools green, clay coloured, dry balls, floating or sinking away.
  • diarrhoea
  • undigested food
  • moody
  • depressed
  • anxious
  • mouth ulcers
  • cold-sores
  • vertigo
  • red around the nose and mouth and sore
  • red cheeks in children
  • vomiting and nausea
  • light headedness
  • fainting after food

I recommend the following way to test your child or yourself for allergies and food intolerance’s under supervision of an expert you will get a good list of foods to eat and the ones to have on rotation. And those ones like dairy, grains and sugars to avoid.

A raw food high fruit cleanse based on “80 10 10”- this is  fast way to restore balance in the microbiome and cleanse the body from candida. being high in fruit during the day then a raw said meal at night you allow easy digestion and health carbohydrates to fuel glucose to the brain. This has helped me over come many food intolerance and being variety back in to my diet.once you have done the cleanse you can re introduce foods with a positive mindset and belief work.

Water Fasting under a supervised practitioner– Read Dr Herbet Sheltons books first please or contact me.

Low Dose Immunotherapy- This method of testing will help you to quickly identify and potentially treat your allergies and intolerances so a nutritionally well-balanced diet becomes a more realistic option for you. Over a 3-4 day period in the clinic at ‘Your Health’ Brighton Melbourne you will be tested for 25 plus foods to see how your body reacts. Then reach your bodies level where those symptoms start to switch off. Once the testing is complete you will have your own personalised cocktail with a histamine in it to inject daily. so you can eat those 25 plus foods safely without your immune system switching on to attack them. This gives your body the chance to eat healing nutritious foods to heal your gut. I strongly recommended this treatment for those of you eating just a few foods and reacting to your home and environmental toxins, but it’s expensive at $500 a day and it works along side working with a Doctor to heal your gut and a supplementary plan to work on the bodies deficiencies. For children they use a saline dropper on the tongue so no needles needed. It’s a pain fee easy way of testing your children with true accuracy. http://allergyintolerancetreatment.com

A word about other testing mehtods: Blood test-  Although this gives you up to 80 foods quickly and with little pain and cost, the issue is the blood test will only show what the body is reacting to at the time of the blood test i.e. the foods you eat the most. This does not show a true indication of the body, as the carrot could not be the issue but as its been eaten with the cheese, and the cheese the culprit then your body all attack this food too. Also as I have mentioned if your gut is damaged you will be reacting to most foods. They also promotes avoiding that high food completely and as I have also mentioned that makes the body react to the small amounts of food you are eating. You are better to remove only the big food groups that cause issues like soy, grains, sugars and chemicals and rotate your health’s foods to lessen the load.

Kinesiology Muscle Testing and Vaga Testing – Both of these methods are controversial and you will find people that swear by them and others who knock them down. In my opinion I believe they can work well, but you have to have a great relationship with your therapist as they can sway the results. You also have to be calm and focussed so this can be hard for children and often the results can be varied. I had good results with Vaga testing to help me when I started The Elimination diet but on experience I would have just gone straight to The Gaps Diet. I believe Kinesiology holds many great benefits for releasing energy and helping balance the body but is to varied for food intolerance testing.

My conclusion is to not demonise a particular healthy food but to avoid the worst food groups, soy, grains, sugars and dairy for some and rotate the healthy foods like vegetables, proteins, fruit, nuts and seeds and good fats so your body doesn’t not get used to them and can cope with them in small doses. Whilst and this has to be the most important thing you do . . . work on healing the gut lining and repairing the holes. Taking digestive enzymes can help as will a good probiotic and eating prebiotic foods, raw real foods, fruits and good fats help restore the gut lining too.

An example of this is bananas used to make me angry so I stop eating them completely. Once my gut had healed I added them in again, but now I find blueberries have that effect on me . . why because all I ate was blueberries. Now I have blueberries occasionally and banana occasional with little effect. I try to rotate my foods and always continuer to strengthen my gut and heal my body.

The alternative is you will keep getting more and more intolerant to foods and environments and your body will think its safer to shut down. And as someone who has been there it is not nice and you do not want the T-shirt!

On this blog I hope to show you there are always alternatives to your favourite foods and swapping one for another means you can still enjoy your favourite snack without all the pain and discomfort.

Understanding Food Intolerances and Allergies.

Understanding why yourself or your child has started to react to a food you have eaten for along time and out of the blue can be frustrating and confusing.

Over the years and through lots of experience I have leant not to demonise that one food like the tomato or strawberry to name 2 of the worst culprits. But to indentify why you or your child is having that reaction.

I like to imagine the nervous system like a pot a big shiny pot. Once that pot is full it starts to overflow. Bubble and spit and boil over. What’s it over flowing with? Toxins, chemicals in the home and personal beauty products, processed foods, sugar, alcohol, gluten, additives, E-numbers, preservatives, stress, lack of sleep, over exercising or lack of exercise . . . If you remove some ingredients, the pot will calm down and simmer along nicely again.

We went down the path of eliminating most foods on the RPAH Elimination Diet and running around like head less chickens panicking about if the kids had eaten a carrot, which was medium on the RPAH Salicylates list. This panic in it’s self was not helping. So learn from my experience. Yes you have to eliminate a few food groups and temporally remove trigger foods and toxins but the most important thing to do is to learn why it’s happening and to remove those items but then repair the body. All food intolerances, out of character behavioural issues and skin reactions are a symptom of the gut. Repair the gut and the symptom will calm down. Remove the foods, limit your triggers but faller to repair the gut or underlying problem will mean you are chasing your tail for many years blaming eggs, nuts or nigh shades. For me I blamed dark raw chocolate, when really it was the stress that leads me to eat chocolate as when I eat chocolate without stress my body copes with it just fine. With my son he can cope with nuts but only when life is calm for him. If there is stress from a new school term, or daddy is away for a while then his pot rises and his body reacts to more things and I can’t give him as many foods as his nervous system is heightened. So instead we steer clear of his trigger foods until he is calm. Then he copes just fine as his pot is very low. What comes first the reaction or the food or both we will never know. Stress plays a big part in gut damage and why you may be reacting. Practice mindful eating. Chew your food. Turn your TV off and focus on sitting straight and enjoy your food that is nourishing your body. Example. I can’t eat nightshades very often. So if I make a 5 minutes tomato and capsicum omelette, eat fast then rush to get out the door whilst screaming at the kids to hurry up we are late . . .and not digest it properly I will react. But If I’m out to dinner with friends and I have nightshades on my plate, as I am calm and happy my body copes with it better. Again how full is your pot depends on what you can cope with.

bowlmind

REMOVE-REPAIR-RE-TRY

So where to start?

Firstly before I go on to show you the best paths to take and how to tackle what must seem like mind field too most.

I must explain the damage Antihistamines, pain killers, Steroids and Anti-fungal or Antibiotics can do on an already weakened under attack Immune system and a nervous system that is over flowing (remember the pot). These are suppressing the symptoms so putting a big lid on that pot that is boiling over. Well we have all done that whilst cooking and what happens? it still over flows and splits worst, often making more mess and not fixing the issue. You have to turn down the heat to stop it and remove some ingredients. By using antihistamines and steroid creams you are pushing it down and it will come out another way and worst. So what was a skin rash might come back as a chest infection or earache. Keep suppressing that with more medication without looking at the cause, it will come out in an asthma attack lets say or a headache because you body is no longer getting the minerals it needs because of holes in the gut lining and food particles are being attacked in the blood stream and your brain is being starved. Keep going with more medication and it comes out as something worst and so on till you get a really nasty problems. So please don’t use a short-term fix, look at the real reason and repair the gut.

There are natural herbs and foods that are antihistamines that work brilliantly to calm your body’s reactions whilst you fix your body. Also you could use Homeopathy, but not synthetic drugs.

An allergy is something your often born with an your reaction is acute or deadly an Intolerance is something you can calm and change with diet and lifestyle. Although I have seen many people over come lifelong Allergies to nuts and pollen through healing their gut that they were born with. But most doctors will tell you that is impossible.

Healing and repairing diets to work towards adapting in your family would be:

A 100%raw food diet low in fats high in carbohydrates and fruits, melons, berries and nuts and seeds and free from anything else.

These are not quick fixes but lifestyle changes that will mean you can change your outcome and stop a life of needing creams, medication and avoiding foods.

No sugar coating: You must eliminate all (MSG), preservatives, additives, flavour enhancers, gums, vegetable proteins (TVP) E-numbers, food acids, thickening agents, sugars and fake processed foods including soy bi-products like dairy milks, soy lecithin in chocolate, chocolate, caffeine , alcohol ect and trans fats and all oils. (Real food only not from a packet)

food-not-food

Understanding the main chemical and allergy food groups:

Salicylates: this big word is a plant chemical found naturally organic or non organic fruit like strawberries and vegetables like tomatoes and eggplant, honey, spices, teas, coffee, yeast and products which use them like laundry powder, aspirin, perfumes, toothpaste, cleaning products.

Amines: this is from the breakdown of proteins. Amines levels increase in meats and fish and cheese that is char grilled, aged or matured and in fruits and vegetables that are very ripe like bananas, olives, and avocado. Or concentrated sauces like tomatoes sauce, fruit juices, chocolate, flavoured spreads, jams and fermented foods.

Glutamate: this is an amino acid that is an essential building block of all proteins and is found in most naturally foods. In its natural state away from protein it is used to enhance flavour in foods like cheese, tomato, stock cubes, spreads, soy sauce, yeast extract. Like amines they naturally accrue in ripe fruits, so as the proteins in the fruit break down they appear.

Fructose: this is simple sugar found in fruits and vegetables and natural sweeteners like honey and maple syrup. Fructose when eating as a whole piece of fruit can be absorbed well because it has the fibre to go with it. When you have it as a fruit syrup or juice without the fibre or as dried fruit, which is concentrated. It can ferment in the large bowel causing gas and an over production of bad bacteria. Fructose is not a problem for most if it’s eaten as a whole fruit and in small amounts of local organic in season fruit. The problem arises when a cold climate person eats lots of tropical fruits, juices and dried fruits. (Example 1 box of sultans contain up to 50 grapes or 1 roll up contains 7 serves of fruit and often sulphur and sugar is added) fruit juice is pure sugar to the body and it spikes your hormones gives you short term energy without any of the goodness to feed your body. Eat fruit as a whole piece of fruit.

Lactose: this is the natural sugar found in milk. Its a compound sugar made up of glucose and galactose and can not be absorbed until its been digested by the enzyme Lactase in the small bowel. Which if you don’t have that enzyme you cannot digest it.

Gluten: if you have reaction to gluten you might have Coeliac Disease and before removing it you should be tested. For others it may be an intolerance and once others food have been removed and replaced with organic, unprocessed grains that have been stored properly, soaked and prepared properly you may be able to cope with it. But that does not mean shop brought cookies, cakes and breads that means homemade fermented grains or homemade sourdough using traditional methods. For me I cannot cope with grains yet as I still have gut healing to do. This should be one of the last foods to replace.

Histamines: is a chemical, which occurs naturally in certain foods. This is also one of the chemicals that is released in the body as part of an allergic reaction, causing the typical itching, sneezing, wheezing and swelling allergy symptoms. We all have an enzyme which breaks down any histamine that we absorb from a histamine-containing food. When we eat a food, which contains histamine, it does not affect us. However, some people have a low level of this enzyme. When they eat too many histamine-rich foods they may suffer ‘allergy-like’ symptoms such as headaches, rashes, itching, diarrhoea, and vomiting or abdominal pain. This is called histamine intolerance. Foods that are high are. Champagne, wine, beer, cider and other fermented drinks and spirits, sauerkraut and other pickled foods., tofu and soya sauce, aged foods like cheese and meats, mushrooms, tinned fish, sausages and other processed meats (ham, salami, gammon, bacon) mushrooms, dried fruit, seeds, nuts, yeast extract, yeast, chocolate, cocoa, cola.

Check out more information on:

http://fedup.com.au

This is a chart I used back when I was working out what we were reacting too. It may help you too. Fill it in with your symptoms and your triggers.

Symptoms Gluten Dairy Soy Corn Eggs Nuts Citrus Chocolate Sugar High Salicylates High Amine
Bloating
Headache
Joint pain
Rash
Hot flush
Mood changes
Anxiety
Depression
Your symptom

 Change the column names to suit your symptoms and foods.

Getting started.

I recommend eliminating all trigger foods like dairy, eggs, nuts, soy, gluten, and sugar for 3 weeks to allow your pot to empty. Drinking water away from food and also removing toxins from your home and turning to natural products to clean and wash clothes and avoiding as many outside toxins as you can. As I said earlier ‘No Sugar coating!’

Once you have made it through the 3 weeks without any slip-ups reintroduce one food at a time eating that food at least twice a day for two days using the chart to observe your symptoms.

If you have symptoms like a rash, brain fog, fatigue or a digestive reaction remove it again and write it on the chart. If you are fine with the food you can keep eating it.

Once the reaction has past what a day and start on the next food.

A note about Gluten if you react to it in any way bloating, headache, rash, bowel changes you may need to keep it out until your gut heals.

You can’t be part time gluten free as it takes up to 3 weeks and in some cases 3 months to remove the particles from the intestinal tract. So no cheating on the weekends if you want to be symptom free!

Be patient, as it will take time to reintroduce the foods back watching for reacting and not adding the ones you react to until you have done the gut repairing.

REMOVE-REPAIR-RE-TRY

Look at my Gut healing protocol or contact me to take you through the process of healing.

 Good luck finding your triggers guys!