Well I’ve had a busy month, and am looking forward to a break next week!
I am going to share some case histories with you this time of people whom I have tested in the last few weeks [names have been changed] I hope that you will find them interesting, and that for those of you too far away to get to me for testing, they may be helpful to you in finding your own food intolerances.
Take Steph, a young woman who came to see me because of an unsightly hot, raised red rash on her neck. She was intolerant of green tea, which was not a surprise [to me] because she drank several cups a day. The other foods she was intolerant of were surprising though….vanilla, sunflower oil and orange… i had explained to Steph that likely suspects would be things she ate or drank several times a day. She rarely had anything with orange or vanilla. When I explained which foods involved use of sunflower [margarines, crisps, oven chips, seeded bread] she was not using any of those. Then she took a look at the ingredients in her lipsalve, which she used many times in a day. Ingredients? sunflower oil, orange and vanilla!
Or Marian, who had been dairy-lite for a few months,in an attempt to alleviate her irritable bowel symptoms. because she did not realise the link between frequency of use and food intolerance, she had been over-using soya products…soya milk in several cups of tea daily, and bread containing soya flour twice daily. Marian was intolerant of cow’s milk products, even though she had been avoiding them ALMOST completely for a few months. ALMOST is important as it needs to be COMPLETE exclusion for the three month period. It is TOTAL lay off which allows the body to recover.
What about Jane? She was convinced that anything she ate caused her irritable bowel symptoms. She never suspected the eight cups of tea! She was not intolerant to any foods at all.
Take Alice… She was very suspicious of corn , as she had noticed severe tummy symptoms after custard and actimel, both of which contain corn. But they both contain milk too, and that was her poison.
ARE FOODS YOU EAT MORE THAN TWICE DAILY ALWAYS LIKELY TO BE A CAUSE OF YOUR PROBLEM?
Well…mostly , but not always…
I have done a quick tot up of foods and drinks people were intolerant of in the last three weeks. Every single person tested was eating or drinking their problem items at least twice daily, apart from people intolerant of cocoa and orange. All of the cocoa intolerances occurred when the person regularly ate something chocolatey only once a day, and the orange intolerances seemed unrelated to frequency of use. Those results echo the results I see week in, week out.
Conversely in the last three weeks there were only 2 people who were eating or drinking foods more than twice daily and were NOT intolerant. One of them was intolerant of tea [from having five cups daily] and despite the fact she had milk in every cup of tea, was not intolerant of milk. The other person was having four coffees daily , and luckily for her, was not intolerant of her favourite drink.
MIGRAINES IN THE NEWS
I don’t know whether any of you read in the Daily Mail this week about the woman who had been suffering migraines for 15 years or so, and has not had suffered another one since excluding dairy products and corn from her diet, following a ‘Yorktest’. For any of you far away who have migraines, I find that diet alone may not be the full answer. But certainly excluding the foods you are intolerant of will provide part of the answer. The other things I would advise are
- to take a Vitamin B6 supplement 80 to 100mg daily,
- if you suspect that you have a problem regulating your blood sugar [feel shaky, sick or irritable if you don’t eat frequently] take a chromium supplement 200 micrograms
- rid your home of chemical fragrance, air fresheners, fragranced candles, fabric conditioners, fragranced cleaning sprays.
NEWS ABOUT MY BOOK
Sales are steady which is good. Many thanks to all of you who have bought a copy. I hope that you find it very useful in broadening your knowledge. To any of you who sent me a testimonial for inclusion in the book I would like to send you a complimentary copy. Stupidly I deleted all your emails, so cannot remember who you are. If you send me your name and address I will send you a book.
There must have been a lot of interest as it comes out top if you put ‘Food intolerance books’ into an Amazon search. Which is good!! If any of you who have read it could do an Amazon review I would be very grateful. I have 5 * reviews, but only three so far.
If you do wish to buy one you can do so from my website, or buy individually direct from me.
MAGAZINE ARTICLE
I wrote a two pager for Natural Health magazine July edition. Take a look!
TWO REMINDERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE HAD A TEST WITH ME
- If you are not massively better a week into my suggested change of diet, make sure you let me know, and we’ll do a bit more testing…no charge.
- The symptoms you presented to me with may change later on. So if you return to original eating habits after your three month lay off, remember this. IBS might morph into eczema, headaches into catarrh. It can commonly change when there is another trigger, like a virus, a hormone change or a period of stress.