Appetizers
Soups
Salads
Fish & Seafood
Pasta & Rice
PIZZA
Vegetables
Poultry
Meat
Grilling & BBQ
Cheese
Sweets
Fruits
Breads
Brunch
Beverages
Condiments & Sauces
Preserves & Pickles
Dairy Free Recipes
Farrago
Table of Contents
Outdoor BBQ & Party Ideas
Add-A-Recipe
BikePro Parts & Accessories
Ipod Repair Service
Northern CaliforniaWine Country Vacation
Windsor Oaks Vineyards
Joseph Swan Vineyards
Forgotten Felines
Microchip Your Pet
|
HUGE Discounts
on affordable
designer and
discount brand
name shoes.
Click here to
see the deals
on over 2000
items.
Imelda's Closet |
Food Allergies; Daignosing and ManagingContributed by: MelindaIn June of 2006, in the northern California area, allergy season had come on with a vengeance and I was having an unusual time with sneezing, coughing, congestion and runny nose. While having coffee with a friend, she mentioned that she was living on Claritin. I had never tried a Claritin product before, Benadryl being the only allergy medication I ever found to work. I decided that next time I went to the market I would get a small package of Claritin to try. After looking at all the various Claritin products I decided on the smallest quantity which was Claritin 24. It only had 5 tablets, so I thought that if it didn't work, I'd at least not be wasting much by giving it away or throwing it out. I went and asked the pharmacist about whether it indeed doesn't make you drowsy (the reason to take something other than Benadryl) and she gave me some tips about using it for maximum effectiveness without suffering from drowsiness. I got home around 12:00pm and took one of the 24 hour dose tablets. After about 10 minutes I developed a cough and about 40 minutes later also began sneezing uncontrollably. I decided belatedly to read about the inactive ingredients in this product and discovered something called 'lactose monohydrate' which sounded like a milk derivative. I contacted Claritin support online and received a response the following day. In addition to apologies for the adverse reaction I had experienced, they said 'lactose monohydrate is a milk derived sugar. There are 81mgs of lactose in each pill.' The conventional wisdom about dairy allergies is that it is the proteins in milk that cause sinus type allergic reactions, while the sugars are responsible for digestive and skin irritations. Although there could be some other cause for my severe attack that day, I was in my own environment and none of the symptoms began until I had taken the new medication. I was completely astounded by the idea that a medication to treat allergy symptoms would contain an allergen as one of it's inactive ingredients. Be careful. Know your allergy and understand how it manifests so you can be aware of it immediately. I had to get into the shower / steam to stop sneezing. I actually had such a severe attack I could only lie in bed. I was still coughing and having some sneezing problems after 3 hours. If the Claritin company had responded to me right away as I had hoped, I would certainly have asked them if I could take a Benadryl to counteract the effect of the symptoms I was experiencing. I would have appreciated the relief. Check below for links to some interesting reading about dairy allergies. My Food Allergy and How I Learned to Manage It Several years ago while waiting for someone at a doctor's office, I was reading a story in a health magazine about a teenage girl who had been diagnosed with allergies to dairy products. The article was in fact about how very few allergists really understood how allergies affect the body and consequently don't diagnose most of the allergies people have. The skin test is a miniscule portion of what types of allergies people actually suffer from. This teenage girl had been a straight-A student all her life, very outgoing and active and always had a cheery temperament. Suddenly in her early teens, everything changed. She began to develop daily intestinal problems and nausea, migraine headaches and her grades dropped. Because of the patient profile, the allergist recommended an elimination diet excluding all dairy products from the girls diet. After sticking to the restrictions for a month, the girls grades were again Straight-A's and her health problems had stopped. This started me thinking about my own health. At this time, I was suffering from awful headaches at least once, and often twice per month. They would last for 2-3 days during which time I functioned at a very low level, often going to bed for hours with Benadryl to escape the pain. I was also unable to work in the garden for more than a few minutes without having terrible sneezing and watery eyes. Peripherally, everytime I used any household chemicals, I would become sick to my stomach and start sneezing and itching. I remembered that during my high school years, I was unable to eat ice cream without getting a very upset stomach, and pizza was about the same. To think I might have an allergy to dairy products was about the last thing I wanted to think about, since I absolutely love milk in my coffee, vanilla custard, buttery bread and let's face it...I'm adicted to cheese! In fact, I could live on Wine and Cheese and Bread. However, the headaches alone were disabling enough for me to decide to try an elimination diet. Now, these things are complicated, especially when it comes to dairy products. I'm someone who has coffee every morning and really enjoy it. I also always used butter in my cooking as well as having finally mastered the ice cream problem and indulged in that periodically. Then there's the cheese. Cheese featured in most of my days at some point. This is my weakness and boy did that one hurt to contemplate. None the less, I decided to find some substitutes and just go cold turkey on the rest. I read up on elimination dieting and learned that this requires a minimum of one month before you really know if you have an allergy or sensitivity to a particular food. This is a long time, but not only does the food in question have to be entirely out of your system, but in order to get a clear idea of how a food affects you, you need to let your body 'recover' from it, or rebalance itself before introducing it again. So I did it. After a week I got used to the soy milk in my coffee. After two weeks, I wasn't craving milk, cheese or butter (thank God). When the month had passed and I hadn't had a headache at all, or any sinus difficulty I decided it was an unmistakable result. I am allergic to dairy products. To reinforce my conclusion, all the conditions I now attribute to dairy allergy are consistent. If I am 'clean' and have dairy one day, it often won't have any effect at all. Sadly for me, this often traps me into thinking 'what will another day hurt?'. Wrong, wrong, wrong attitude! If I continue to have small amounts on an ongoing basis, everything returns. No matter how often I put this to the test, it comes out the same. One of the good things to come out of learning about my allergy is that over 4 months I lost 10 pounds. This was not due to dieting, because I really do eat a lot. Over the next 7 or 8 months I lost another 15 pounds. I don't necessarily eat less fat or calories, but my body is able to use the food I eat for my benefit. Here's what I think happens. An allergy is an immune system response to something that your body believes to be harmful. This is a natural response, but when your body is out of balance, this response can be overactive, or can respond to something that really isn't a threat. In my case of dairy allergy, I have noticed that when I'm not eating dairy products, I almost never have hay fever, sneezing, cough or watery eyes. I also have insignificant, if any digestive problems. I don't crave carbs, sweets or high fat foods, and my body seems to process the food I do eat more efficiently. It feels to me when I'm eating dairy products, my immune system is in overdrive, which causes my body to use it's reserves to combat the dairy that it can't process, leaving insufficient resources for maintenance. Here are some of the in's and out's of deciding and trying elimination dieting to determine if you have a food allergy:
A Note on Preservatives Over the past 10 years, I've started only buying food items if I understand what the list of ingredients is. If I don't know what something listed on a label is, I typically put it back on the shelf. Due to an unpleasant incident a couple of years ago, I have discovered that preservatives in foods can cause very serious reactions in certain people. Below are a couple of links to read about preservatives and food additives which is interesting. Food Additives Chart About Allergies Recommended reading: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. If you don't want to know about the entire food industry or fast foods, go to the library and read Chapter 5 Why the Fries Taste Good. Otherwise buy the book...it's important reading for those who purchase and prepare food. Dairy Allergy Information Food allergy as defined by the conventional medical field Food Allergy vs. Food Intollerance Questions about this article? |
©2007 Webdiaries, All Rights Reserved.