Are you allergic to certain foods? Do you even know? It might surprise you to find out that many people experience symptoms of food allergies, without full blown allergy attacks, yet attribute these symptoms to other maladies.
What can you do to determine whether you have food allergies or intolerance? Be diligent – proper testing and diagnosis is key. Most people think of food allergies as reactions to certain foods causing obvious symptoms, such as stomach pains, itching, swelling in the face and lips and red raised skin rashes.
As a description of food allergies, this is accurate. Yet for the majority of Americans, more subtle and often unassociated symptoms and signs occur. These include joint pain, fatigue, clouded thinking, anxiety & even severe neurological disorders. These symptoms, which the suffer usually never even connects with food, are called food intolerances.
Problems with intolerance and even food allergies can be difficult to identify. Just because you can eat a certain food without having to call emergency services doesn’t mean it isn’t ultimately going to cause you some undercurrent health challenges that may demonstrate in systemic inflammation in your body.
Food intolerances differ from true food allergies in that they can be delayed days & weeks after exposure to the offending foods. In addition, they cause symptoms that are usually considered to be connected with reactions to foods, such as joint & muscle pains, severe fatigue, irritability & hyperactivity. Many people become severely debilitated by food intolerances. Most doctors miss the connections between these reactions.
Unlike food allergies, intolerances involve another type of immunoglobulin called IgG. IgE usually disappear from the blood in a matter of days, whereas IgG can persist for months. IgG can also perform a trick that can cause sickness for prolonged periods of time. It tends to bind to the food component protein and become implanted in tissues, where it hangs around for months after a single exposure to the offending food. These nasty immune particles are called “immune complexes”. They are seen in a number of autoimmune diseases, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and explain why food reactions can worsen these diseases
So what are some of the clues that let you know you have food allergies?
The biggest clues to pay attention to are:
- You have unexplainable bouts of fatigue soon after eating a food. This is the biggest red flag & most common symptom
- A frequent stuffy nose or post nasal drip
- Mental fogginess after eating
- Headaches that don’t go away
- Sticky red & swollen eyes
- Difficulty losing excess weight
- Frequent skin rashes, hives or acne
- Shortness of breath & chest tightness
- General ill feelings in your tummy that does not go away…. where food just sits around…… or you experience chronic bloatedness or gasiness
- Chronic dark circles under the eyes that are not due to loss of sleep
- Reoccurring inflammatory conditions of any kind in the joints. For example : Having swollen fingers or intermittent arthritis pain
With children, food allergies can show up with:
- Reoccurring ear infections or asthma
- Or hyperactivity & frequent temper tantrums
