Food Intolerances?

hey...has anyone found out that they have a food intolerance (not allergy)? How long did it take you to find out, and did you visit your doc?

i became lactose intolerant over about a month. i did go to the doctor, but after about 3 months, to get tested to make sure i wasnt limiting my diet for nothing. but crappy staffordshire dont have a testing facility, so it came down to "if its making you ill, stop eating it!"

our wonderful campus doctor lol, (he once told me i should be burnt at the stake, and every few minutes after made comments like "burny burny flames" "toasty" lol) known (affectionatly) by most as doctor rude

lactose intolerance is fairly easy to spot though, you drink milk ou get ill etc. but others can be a bit more tricky

I realised that wheat wasn't such a great thing for me, after returning to a western diet after 6 months in Korea. At first I was over the moon to be able to eat bread and cheese again, pasta etc, but after 2 weeks it was pretty clear this wasn't great for me, I resisted for another 2 weeks, and after that cut out the wheat again, and felt better within a few days. (bloating symptoms). I still eat some occassionaly, but I try to really restrict it. It is definately worth it. I also noticed that when i stopped some itching i had been experiencing stopped, and that is how i know i'm not imagining it, because if i eat too much wheat it comes back again (within the same day) even if the other symptoms don't.

I also have an alergy to citrus fruits, which give me headaches, but that was simple to discover. In general I would say cut out the suspected food for a few days/week. Then try introducing it again.

If is it something simple, I wouldn't bother seeing a doctor personally, but if you are experiencing more serious symptoms then you should definately see one. What intolerance do you think you might have???

i believe im lactose intolerant but im not sure cause its hard to tell =/
I drink milk every morning and right after im done with breakfast my lower stomach is really bloated...like significantly bloated in comparison to when i wake up. I dont think its that natural expansion of your stomach after you eat cause the bloating is where my lower intestines are.

I went for 10 years before someone correctly diagnosed my lactose intolerance.  It got so bad, I had flu like symptoms every morning.  A few times it landed me in the hospital and they misdiagonosed as food poision. 

hello again. i got this test from a site i often look to for guidance on lactose intolerance.

http://www.foodreactions.co.uk/intolerance/la ctose/

if you normally drink milk in the morning i suggest you double the amount for the test

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Home Self-Test One can self diagnose for lactose maldigestion by having a milk challenge. A person fasts overnight and then drinks a large glass of milk in the morning. Nothing further is eaten or drunk for 3-5 hours. If a person is lactose intolerant, the milk should produce symptoms. The time the symptoms start vary from one individual to another. They may occur as early as within one hour or can take up to 3 hours within of ingestion. If there are no symptoms, it is unlikely that lactose intolerance is the cause of the symptoms. It is important for the milk that is used to be non-fat milk to eliminate the possibility that fat in the milk is the cause of symptoms.

Warning: It is very important that this test is purely done after understanding the different symptoms between milk allergy and lactose intolerance. They are entirely two different disorders. If not sure visit the page which lists the different symptoms. This is not usually confusing since allergy to milk is rare and usually occurs in infants and young children. However, persons with severe milk allergy may experience an anaphylactic shock! (If milk allergy is a consideration, pure lactose can be used instead of milk.)

An important issue in the milk challenge is the amount of milk to use.

If a person drinks glasses of milk or ingests larger amounts of milk-containing products in their normal diet, then a larger amount of milk should be used in the challenge, equivalent to one or two large glasses of milk.

If the person being tested usually does not drink glasses of milk or ingest larger quantities of milk-containing products, there may be a problem with using large quantities of milk as they may cause symptoms, but the smaller amounts of milk or milk products that these persons ingest in their normal diet may not be enough to cause symptoms. Technically, they may be lactose intolerant when they are tested with larger amounts of milk, but lactose in their normal diet cannot be responsible for their usual symptoms.

Recognition of this issue is important in interpreting the results of a milk challenge.

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I am now wondering if i have a food sensitivity too. i have ibs but when i get all distended when i eat it is not my stomach area which is in upper abdomen but i distend in lower abdomen!! but everything seems to do this to me..even sometimes w/out even eating i will get gassy or/& distended and uncomfortable for no reason?

hey daisy, i read a really interesting book called the "the IBS low starch diet" by Carol Sinclair, she also has a website. http://www.lowstarchdiet.net/

I don't think i have as big a problem as alot of people, but i find cutting out the wheat really helps, and minimising the other starches i eat. I find some higher starch foods aren't too bad, but some of the lower starch (well lower than rice or potatoes) like sweet potato, bananas and peanuts cause me problems, which I might not have realised without reading the book which identifies them as medium risk foods.

I don't know if it would help wiht your problems, but it might be worth a look

Jane

thanks. i will check out that site. i hope this is not the case for me as i love wheat bread/wraps/pitas! and i love peanut butter!!! i dont eat a lot of other starch foods, so that is ok. i never eat potatoes.

yeah ive heard that IBS can lead to food intolerances, and that food intolerances alone can make you feel as if you have IBS. So you can have a food intolerance and not have IBS, or you can have IBS and not have a food intolerance.

confusing isnt it.

it is confusing!! i dont want to cut any of the food i eat, i love it all!!

1) Yes
2) It depends on how you measure "how long." From the first symptoms that were noticeably gastrointestinal and worsening, about six months. From possible but not clear beginnings, 15-20 years.
3) Yes. First time, they found nothing and said it was IBS. When usual IBS diets actually made things worse, I researched some more, and tried a gluten-free diet for a short period. Noticeable (though not complete) improvement in only a few days, symptoms came right back when I went back to regular food. This prompted a different blood test that confirmed the diagnosis, and now two months later and off all offending grains, I feel awesome. One bonus is that it made it a lot easier to diet - one, because my intestines are healing and I'm not mineral-starved despite sufficient intake anymore, two, because my diet is so restricted. Vegan, no wheat, barley or rye, and instructed by the doc also to avoid anything high in fat. Pretty much the only way I can gain more than a trivial amount of weight and still be within the basic dietary guidelines for me is to eat cups and cups of rice, or drench everything in sugar. Neither is very tempting.

It was really hard at first, i guess it depends on how bad your symptoms are and whether they interfere with your life. I can eat a little bit of wheat, say two serves a week, without too many problems, but if i eat it like normal people, then i really have problems. So i eat it if i really want, but the rest of the time, i eat other things. I don't think i have ibs, i think i just have the intolerance.

perhaps if you start just logging your symptoms along with what you eat and see if you can see any correlations, before you start cutting things out.  I'm used to it now, since it has been almost 4 years with minimal wheat intake, but at the begining it was kind of tough, (especailly since i was in France at the time and the bread and crossiants are so amazing there). Anyway i wish you both good luck

jainasolo,

so what do you eat?

I was diagnosed with allergies to wheat, oats, milk, eggs, and peanuts.  The allergist suggested cutting out all of these foods for a week, then introducing them one at a time week by week to see if I noticed any difference.  The results were interesting... peanuts = rash and itching... wheat or oats = joint pain, bloating, and constipation... all others seem okay.  Food intolerances can cause weird symptoms!

Fruit, vegetables, rice, soy- or almond-based dairy replacers if the fat content is fairly low, exotic grains, different kinds of beans, lentils, that sort of thing. Sometimes I'll go and get stuff like pasta made from corn or rice, but not too often.

daisyg - i have the EXACT same symptoms as you!! please tell me how you are doing since last year

i am hoping i have a food intolerance because IBS diets are not helping me at all - can anyone share their story?

i used to think i had some kind of intolerance to glucose or something, because when i began eating sweets, cakes, cookies, stuff like that id feel so sick and bloated.

but i think that was just because i grew up rarely having such things so i wasnt used to it. now it doesnt bother me that much

Hey there- I have a wheat intolerance/allergy that took years to discover. I figured it out using an elimination diet due to a weird skin reaction I was having (which turned out to be unrelated). I have since read in a naturopathic health book that the correct way to diagnose intolerances is to cut the food you suspect is causing the problem out for an entire month, then have some and see what happens. If you are intolerant, you will know.

When I cut the wheat out it took me about 1 day to figure out that it was an issue for me, I instantly felt better, wasn't bloated and in pain, and had more normal digestion. Good luck!

heyy

my celiac test came back negative but i had cut out gluten for like at least a week before taking it. some websites say you need to be eating gluten for the test to be accurate...my doctor said it didnt matter. COuld the test have been faulty? I dont go back for like...ever, its very hard to get appts with this doctor.

Anyone else have a soy/peanut/legume intolerance NOT allergy? I'd loveeeee to talk to you! Did you self-diagnos or what?

I had excruciating pain in my knees for years. Finally I went to see a doctor about it, thinking I had an injury from jogging. She treated me like I was hysterical and probably lying. (probably because I was quite heavy -230 lbs.) She couldn't find any injury and told me in a very flip and sarcastic way to stop jogging. I felt like she was laughing at me. Jogging was my only sanity. I suffered from depression and anxiety and it was the only thing that helped. I freaked out because that is NOT a solution. It's a lazy guess, with no clue as to what was wrong and offered no treatment.

I did some research on inflammation and decided to cut out gluten, eggs, and dairy. Within 1 week, my knees felt better and within 2 weeks, the pain was completely gone. Gone! And as a bonus, my tendinitis disappeared, as well as my grumbly stomach. My anxiety and depression evaporated and I was full of energy. Slowly, I was able to add eggs and dairy back into my diet, but my symptoms came back when I ate anything with gluten.

About 2 months later, I went to see a Naturopath (I'm DONE with Western doctors) and she confirmed my suspicions of a gluten intolerance, not an allergy.

It's absolutely amazing the effect foods can have! You never know how something is affecting you until you stop eating it entirely.