Are you allergic to people? Probably not, but there are rare, documented cases that exist of allergies to other people! Allergies can occur to anything imaginable. You can react to external things by whatever means you are exposed to them, through your lungs, skin or intestines.
As a child, I had numerous allergies. The very worst one was to horses. Being near one would send me into an epileptic seizure! After undergoing scratch testing, which is torture for a child, my parents were told I was allergic to every animal with hair or feathers and 75% of all foods. My parents must have been overwhelmed by this news, because I don't remember any food restrictions being imposed upon me (and we always had a dog). Now that I'm older, my allergies aren't so severe. And when I'm off of my food allergy triggers, my airborne allergies are minimal and tolerable. (And I still have a dog).
Do you lament your weak immune systems as the cause of your allergies? Actually, the opposite is true. If your immune system didn't work you'd never have allergies! Allergies are not weaknesses but errors in one of your immune systems. Yes, you have two. As we humans evolved and adapted, older biological systems were more commonly added to rather than replaced. Your older "innate immune system's" primary function is to protect the body's openings and react to invaders quickly. The second or "adaptive immune system" learns what microscopic things are dangerous and which are not. The adaptive system keeps a "memory" of how an invading cell looks so it can respond quickly if it sees such a cell again. So, if you fought off mumps once as a child, your system retains the memory of how to do so for the rest of your life and can squelch any future infection of the same organism even if you don't show any symptoms.
Any point at which your body interacts with the world around you is a possible point of entry for allergies. This includes your respiratory tract (as discussed in our previous newsletter), your skin, and your intestinal tract. Thankfully most skin, or contact, allergies come on quickly so they are easy to identify. Because your intestines have different immune mechanism than your respiratory system or skin, the allergies are different. They can take longer to manifest and they can cause or contribute to symptoms literally anywhere else in your body.
There are two types of intestinal allergies. IgE and IgG. IgE reactions are immediate, (think E for Emergency Room) they are very quick in onset and cause severe symptoms like hives, congestion, swelling, or worse. You may know someone who can't have even one peanut without a dangerous reaction. We call this an anaphylactic reaction, meaning severe and sometimes lethal. In the mid 1900's, scientists were trying to build on the success of vaccines, also called prophylaxis, meaning to prevent. Scientists gave animals small doses of poisons to see if this would protect them against the same poisons in larger doses. The prophylaxis worked so poorly the term ana-phylaxis was coined meaning a fatal toxic reaction.
Most Common TRIGGERS for IgE Food Allergens:
Peanuts
Shellfish
Tree nuts
Soy
By in large, if you have IgE allergies, you figure this out during childhood. It usually takes repeat exposure for this kind of reaction to develop, so we are rarely reactive to a food the first time we have it. It seems that over the last few decades IgE reactions are on the rise in both the US and Canada.
IgG (think G for Gradual) allergies are very different from IgE. Along with classic allergy symptoms of itchy eyes, skin rashes and wheezing, they can cause a huge variety of other symptoms including fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, joint pain, sleep disturbances, mood and behavioral changes, slugging metabolism (easy weight gain) and headaches. Food allergies can also worsen the severity of airborne allergies. The really rotten thing about IgG reactions is that they may not cause any symptoms for as many as 10 days after exposure. Because of this you can have symptoms for years and never see a clear cause even if you suspect food allergies as a culprit.
Most Common IgG Allergens:
Dairy foods
Egg whites
Wheat products
Almonds
Kidney beans
Soy
But any food can be an allergen. Some of the rarest foods to be allergic to are rice, buckwheat, pears, apples, turkey and pork.
Who has food allergies? Anyone with other allergic conditions such as airborne allergies, asthma or eczema, can be more at risk for food allergies. Also fairer complected people have a higher risk factor. But in reality, allergies are common in all population groups. If you have some of the IgG symptoms that are not explained by other causes, you should consider food allergies. They may be an easy solution to troubling symptoms.
How do I find out if I have food allergies? Several options exist. The most direct method is Avoidance and Reintroduction. With this program your diet is carefully structured to avoid one of the common allergens completely for three weeks. During this "time off" of a particular food, day to day symptoms are carefully logged and given scores. After this the food is reintroduced and symptoms are monitored for three more weeks. When doing this Avoidance and Reintroduction program I advise starting with the food at the top of my Most Common IgG Allergens list above and work your way down over the weeks. The list is in order of which foods are most likely to cause reactions. This method requires patience since it can be complicated and time consuming.
Medical tests also exist for food allergies, but be careful, not all tests are equally reliable! Since I know my allergies so well, I am my own guinea pig for allergy testing. Skin tests are miserable and although they can be accurate for IgE allergies they are completely inaccurate for IgG allergies. Conversely, most blood tests are poor indicators for IgE reactions but excellent in finding IgG allergies! Here's where it gets tricky, the accuracy of allergy testing can vary tremendously from lab to lab. Early on in my practice, I'd use my own blood or a consenting patient's blood, to test various labs. I would divide the samples in half and put fake names on them, in other words one person's blood with two different names. The first hoop a lab had to jump through for me was to not give two different reports on the same person's blood! Sadly, most labs did not pass this test. The second test a lab had to pass was to correctly identify the allergens and the severity of allergic responses I knew myself and other volunteers to have. Through this process, I have found the best Food Allergy labs to use, and although I've stuck with them over the years, I still keep 'testing' them!
Will eliminating reactive foods from my diet really help me? Yes! Many of my patients mention experiencing easier weight loss, better digestion, less skin irritations, and decreased aches and pains- all due to cutting out foods that their bodies do not tolerate.
Never assume you have to live with your symptoms! If you don't feel well and have not found explanations for your symptoms, the answer could be as close as your dinner plate!
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