FEBRUARY 2015 Newsletter
Hello again to you all!
I hope that those of you whom I have tested recently are feeling massively better!
And if you are not better within a week or two, make sure that you get back to me for a bit more testing…no additional charge….as there may be something that you are eating that I did not test at the first session.
And for those of you who live a distance away from me, I do hope that the information that you access here will help you. I hope that within a month my new website will be up and running. My plan is to have a lot more information there for people who cannot get a test done with me.
ASK MARY
Q Why am I now reacting to something that I have eaten all of my life so far with no problem?
A Certain triggers will put pressure on your body which means that you react badly to a food or drink that was never a problem for you before the trigger occurred.
These two case histories help to illustrate how stress or hormone change can lead to food intolerances.
Case History
Arjun got himself in a real state when coming up to his A level exams. He had been wonderfully healthy until then but started getting urgent diahrroea, which really disrupted his exams, necessitating a repeat of year 13. Everyone felt that his problem was because of anxiety, and he started meditating and getting some psychological help. Meanwhile his gut problems continued unabated, and just before his mock A levels, he came to see me. Removing dairy products and cocoa from his diet sorted things for Arjun, and I warned him to consider that he might suffer a ‘stress’ trigger again in the future. I also made sure that he understood that viruses or antibiotics can trigger food intolerances to be active again, so that he could be aware of what might happen in the future when he was affected by another trigger.
Case History
Harriet said that she had never felt well since the birth of her second child. Fatigue, headaches and rashes afflicted her. Everyone around her just said that she was tired because of lack of sleep. But everything continued even when the baby was allowing her a good night. It took 8 years of headaches before she learned that she had food intolerances, and then understood that her ‘trigger’ had been the hormonal changes involved in childbirth.
THIS THIS THIS MONTH’S FOCUS IS ON
CATARRH, RHINITIS, COUGH, ASTHMA, GLUE EAR
The above conditions do not usually have one cause, but are often due to a combination of factors.
- Food intolerance
- Breathing in something that aggravates your nasal passages or lungs. These could be
- a) naturally occurring dusts, pollens, moulds, pet hair or fur, or
- b) artificial substances such as fragrances in your environment, gloss paint, diesel or petrol fumes.
Most people who suffer from asthma, catarrh and rhinitis have been told that there is not a lot that they can do about their condition, and are prescribed steroid inhalers or nasal sprays. These work well for most people, and for some people they work well to begin with but then lose their effectiveness. But should you want to deal with the cause, rather than treat the effects with steroids you may want to look at the chart below.
In my survey of 584 adults and children, of whom 197 suffered from asthma, catarrh, rhinitis, chronic cough and throat clearing, these were the commonest causes.
It might it be the polish that makes you wheeze rather than the dust?
And maybe it’s not pollution that has made asthma numbers rocket, but air fresheners, fragranced candles, incense sticks….designed to make our homes smell ‘fresh’, or fabric conditioners….designed to make our clothes smell like ‘a summer meadow.’
- If pollens are part of the problem, then symptoms will be worse when the pollen count is high. In the UK, tree pollens proliferate in the spring, grass and flowers in the summer. I can test for many pollens, but if you are unable to get here, you need to be a bit of a detective. I do have charts of when different trees, flowers and grass pollens are in the air. Just ask me, and I will try to help.
- If the sufferer has feathers in their bedding, [duvets, pillows] their symptoms will tend to be worse during the night and first thing in the morning.
So for those of you who have not been able to have a test with me, it would make sense to follow the rules in my last newsletter [available from my website] to avoid frequently eaten or drunk foods, like dairy products, tea coffee, cocoa, yeast.
And as well as that to rid your home of chemical fragrances and feathers.
If you have a very damp home, try to get rid of black mould by using a dilute solution of bleach. The only people who did test positive to mould were those who know that their home was damp.
I hope that within the next month I will have a brand new website, from which those of you who cannot get to me for a test will be able to buy [for pennies] information sheets about the commonest food intolerances, chemical fragrances in your environment, and more.
Case History
Matthew aged 8, came to see me because of his cough. At times it was uncontrollable…a real barking noise, that sounded painful, and affected his ability to concentrate in school or to sleep at night. His GP diagnosed asthma, and prescribed various types of inhalers.
On testing I found that Thomas was intolerant of cows milk products, and chemical fragrances that might be in household cleaning products. He also reacted adversely to sweet artificial flavourings such as are in coca cola, lemonade, [apart from 7up] and many sweets.
After one week, his cough had only slightly improved, and so he returned for some more [no charge] testing. I checked with Thomas’s mum that she had stopped using fabric conditioners for the family wash, and that she had changed her household cleaning products so that they were fragrance free. I asked them to bring everything that Thomas ate or drank that had more than a couple of ingredients. On testing these items, I found that he was reacting to an ingredient in Ribena, and on closer inspection that the particular bottle contained artificial flavouring. Thomas’s mum had not noticed this. He tended to drink that at the weekends, but not on a schoolday.
A week later his times at home were completely cough-free, but at school, his cough, though improved, was still troublesome. I then sourced some commercial cleaning products that do not contain artificial fragrances. His school was happy to change what they used, and from that day onwards, Thomas’s asthma and cough was no longer a problem.
ALLERGY TO HAIR DYE AND TATTOING INK
It is not uncommon for clients of mine to come to see me, following a nasty reaction to hair dye. Usually this will set them up to suffer scalp reactions to many ‘normal’ shampoos, and for others it seems to act as a trigger for the start of their food intolerances. I was therefore interested to read this blog by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson, who is the editor of an excellent online newsletter ‘FoodsMatter’.
This newsletter provides weekly information and a huge archive of previously published articles, about food allergy, food intolerance, nutrition and associated matters.
Follow this link to the blog about anaphylactic reaction to hair dye, and the ink that is used in tattooing.
http://www.michellesblog.co.uk/ppd-henne-and-the-dangers-of-cross-reactivity/
And this link to the home page of ‘Foods Matter’.
http://www.foodsmatter.com
A SHORT EXCERPT FROM AN EMAIL SENT TO ME THIS MONTH
I received an email from a young woman whom I saw quite a while ago, whom I had helped to a certain extent, but not completely. You will see from the passage below that she felt that she was not being listened to, but she kept on insisting that she was unwell. Hers is a cautionary tale in not giving up when professionals are happy to give up on you. Her problem was an unusual condition, but she is only better because she was very proactive.
‘…..also to go with their gut feeling, because for a long time I did feel like something isn’t right with my body. No one knows their body better than the person it belongs to and intuition is far more important than what others, including the health professionals are telling you and you need to be assertive about it and make sure you are heard and listened to.’
FATIGUE
Many of you suffer from fatigue, and I urge you, if you remain fatigued despite following my dietary recommendations, to think about whether you might have hormonal, thyroid or adrenal problems.
www.womenshealthnetwork.com/ is an online information portal which has many free questionnaires that you could complete, following which you will be sent a report specific to your symptoms. It is a very useful website.
This website is also very helpful for those of you who may suffer depression or anxiety, as these conditions can also be linked with adrenal insufficiency.
Good luck to all of you !
If you do not wish to receive these updates, please just email me. Hopefully soon I will have set up an unsubscribe button.
Conversely, if you know of anyone who might like to receive these monthly updates, please let me know.
Mary Roe
www.maryroefoodintolerancetesting.com
soon to become
www.foodintolerancesolutions.com