Detect And Avoid Food Intolerance

I found a very interesting article about food intolerances, however it was in french. I used google translate for a quick translation and this is what it gives, sometimes there are weird phrases but mostly its very understandable, i was impressed !

Doctors don’t take food intolerances seriously enough !

I found an interesting post dating way back (2003). Still I found that it pictured pretty accurately how usually doctors react with food intolerance.

The story from Dunstan :

By this wednesday, after exhausting every other option under the sun, I was down to three strategies for dealing with these darn mouth ulcers:

1. Suddenly become 40 years old. (My doctor tells me they might just go of their own accord by middle age);
2. Sleep twelve hours a day and spend the other twelve doing aerobics and eating vegetables;
3. Get tested for allergies.

Option 1 was out, and option 2 would have to be a last resort. So I plumped for option 3.

I’ve had allergy testing done before, when I was young, and the process hasn’t altered a whole lot in the intervening years. You roll up your sleeves and put your forearms on the table, palms up. Then the nurse slaps a length of sticky-tape onto each forearm, running from the inside of your wrist up to the inside of your elbow. Along each side of the tape run a series of numbers: 1–10 up one side and 11–20 down the other.

This numbered tape lets the nurse drip 40 different allergens (in solution) on to your arms and keep track of what went where, in case anything reacts. She also applies two controls: water and histamine. Water shouldn’t do anything, histamine should swell up into an little itchy lump (and it does).

When she’s finished with her pipette, she takes a little scalpel blade and pricks your skin where the solutions sit (a different blade for each solution to avoid contamination). This lets the allergens into your blood stream and emphasises any allergic reaction.

Then, once you’ve been dripped on and stabbed, you get sent away to read your book for ten minutes while your body fights dust mites, grass pollen, cocoa, wheat, tomatoes, and so on.

I wasn’t entirely sure which I wanted: a positive or a negative reaction. A negative one would mean I’d exhausted another possible solution to my problem — not good. A positive reaction would have downsides as well. If it turned out I was allergic to, say, wheat, then that might mean we’d cracked what’s secretly causing these ulcers — but who wants to be allergic to wheat? Your meals would be pretty dull if you were allergic to tomatoes, peppers, spice, chocolate, fizzy drinks, citrus, vinegar and wheat. What would that leave me to survive on? Plant roots and dried lentil husks. Hardly fun.

In the end I just sat there and read my book and tried to ignore the mass of imaginary itches that had sprung up all over my body.

As it turns out, I don’t have any food allergies, not even to the things that clearly give me ulcers. Apparently I might have food intolerances but that’s all, and since you don’t die of food intolerance (unlike food allergies which can be fatal) the doctor wasn’t interested in going any further. Don’t eat those foods that give you ulcers, sir, was his advice. Really? What a novel idea, Doctor. I see seven years of medical training have turned you in to an observational and analytical savant. Thank you.

So, that’s that — option 3 out the window.

*sigh*

Well, it’s been nice talking to you, but I really must get to bed — yes I know it’s early, but I have twelve hours of sleep to squeeze in before my morning aerobics and vegetable eating session. Time for last resorts…

The end

Almost 6 years after the post has been made, we see the same kind of stubbornness in some doctors. Thankfully, more and more are starting to direct their patient to the right places. Food intolerances are a serious problem, and it is excessivly important that we do not dismiss it lightly.

There is help out there, there are tests that can pin point the foods that triggers an auto immune response. Food intolerance symptoms can be almost anything, don’t take a chance I say, get tested if you have any kind of discomfort and the doctors can’t help you! (Or won’t help you).

Food Intolerances : Things to Know And Do !

Do you think you might have a food intolerance? Well, you wouldn’t be alone. There are claims that anywhere between 40% and 70% of the population suffer from at least one food intolerance.

Diseases and Illnesses Associated With Food Intolerances

By now you probably know that food intolerance can be devastating to your lifestyle, unlike typical allergies which are easily recognizable and avoidable, food intolerance are much more subtle and with time can cause serious health risks, what health risks ? just look at the list and you will be amazed…

Major symptoms of food intolerance

I already listed a extensive list of food intolerance symptoms, but if you dont feel like looking through the list, just check out this more compact list, it only feature the major symptoms :