Allergies and Food Intolerances

After many many tests the allergists told me he wasn’t allergic to anything. One even said “In this country, medicine uses a death anddisease model.” So, if you you have a fast reaction to a food and could potentially die from it, they can easily test for this type of IgE allergy. But
more subtle intolerances are often overlooked because they are slower reactions and are IgG mediated or delayed reaction to foods. They won’t kill you, but you will have chronic problems and many symptoms.

It turns out my son had multiple food intolerances which were diagnosed through an internist who practices integrative medicine and uses the ALCAT intolerance test which looked at the cells reaction to 150 different foods. Although mainstream doctors won’t do these tests, they were critical to my son and daughter getting better. The GIspecialist, knowing that kids under three often test negative for celiac, an autoimmune disease caused by gluten, did a Prometheus gene test for celiac and discovered two genes for celiac in both my kids. A neurologist also told me the molecule for gluten(wheat), casein (dairy) and soy were very similar, so it would be best to remove all three in order to get better. In our case, the pediatrician never got to the bottom of any of my children’s symptoms, although they were very good at prescribing antibiotics which destroyed my sons good gut flora. It was specialists who were able to finally give me a explanation for why my son was getting sicker and sicker. And it was specialists who were thinking about his symptoms and thinking beyond the tests.

FOOD IS MEDICINE and FOOD IS POISON

The treatment for celiac is a gluten (wheat) free diet. When we began the gluten free/casein free diet the first thing I noticed was that my 18 month old son, who had never slept through the night and had never taken a nap for longer than 45 minutes, suddenly started to sleep
through the night and take a 2 sometimes 3 hour nap. Then he got better–his diaper rash magically went away and his diapers became less foul. His constant runny nose and perpetual sickness went away. Most interesting, was that my picky eater started eating a variety of foods.

When my son did the ALCAT testing for other food intolerances I found out he was intolerant to oranges, broccoli, avocado, oats and black pepper. This is when his red cheeks started to get normal and I noticed all his “allergic” symptoms disappeared.

WHEN TO CONSIDER ALLERGIES AND INTOLERANCES

If your child is constantly sick with one illness and has symptoms of allergies, I would look into nutritional intervention. But if your child has a verbal or physical delay, this is of critical importance and a trial of a GFCF diet of 3-4 months should be done. I would also suggest doing celiac testing in advance or getting a gene test before you put them on a GFCF diet, as Celiac Disease is 1 in 133 now and is very underdiagnosed and requires a lifelong gluten free diet.

When they did my son’s hearing test, I noticed there was an allergist at the Ear Nose and Throat practice. They said that in many cases there is a connection between ear infections and food sensitivities. My son had a runny nose when he was eating food he was intolerant to, but some of the mucous pooled in his ears and caused ear infections. He has not had an ear infection since we changed his diet, although he had three in the six months he was on a regular diet.

Classic symptoms of food allergies are bags under the eyes, dark circles under the eyes, runny nose, diaper rash that won’t go away, constant ear infections and cough. Also, my son had a “verbal processing delay” and my daughter had low muscle tone (“benign congenital hypotonia”) which both cleared up with a change in diet.