# Allergy Elimination Diet?



## Ethereal (May 17, 2002)

Hey there,I saw Bonnei's post and decided to start my own. Not sure if we are going through the exact same thing or not but I have been put on an allergy elimination diet in which I can have no wheat/gluten dairy products, eggs, artificial flavors, preservatives, corn, sugar etc. I'm a vegetarian and I'm already lactose intolerant so I'm having an awfully tough time getting through this. My doctor thinks my IBS and my anxiety have to do with food allergies. I was beginning to think he was right for two days but now, my stomach is bothering me again. Has anybody had to go on a complete elimination diet before and had to re-introduce foods into their diet? This is tough for me. I'm also taking flax seed oil. That's supposed to help with my nerves too.I don't know. I'm confused at this point.Canb


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## ohnometo (Sep 20, 2001)

I have IBS-D I went to a Allergist and had the skin prick testing done and it come back negative to any food or substances...Later after keeping many food diarys and getting discussed with them I started working with leap and learning about Food Intolerance...and that is different then Allergy ...With their bloodtest that I took and following the instructions for my new way of eating I have been able to put my IBS-D and CVS to rest for going on 8 months now...







and that is pretty remarkable


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## WashoeLisa (Sep 12, 2000)

HI Canb,Yes, the elimination diet can be pretty brutal done this way...As risk of sounding like a broken record (or a skipping CD! LOL), that's why I like LEAP so much. You get your results showing what YOUR body specifically reacts too right off. Then the diet starts out with just a few foods and you slowly add things back, checking for reactions. It just seems alot more humane.It can be done the other way- but like I said, its pretty brutal.Take good care,Lisa


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## cloverleaf (Dec 18, 2001)

canb-I've tried the elimination diet. I followed the protocol outlined in the "Food Intolerances..." book written by Dr. Brostoff (or something like that, I forgot...) It's the bible of the food intolerance books.I learned that I was intolerant of....nothing! I found out that milk products, and especially aged cheese, made me have an awful taste in my mouth, especially in the morning. But I wasn't intolerant of anything. Quite a bummer. I lost about 5 pounds doing it, it took about 8 weeks, with the first three the worst because you can't have anything "normal". If you are going to do the elimination diet, do it right. Be rigorous, and follow this doc's plan. No need to suffer only to find out you weren't as rigorous as you need to be in order to find out the truth...Good luck. Oh yes, my allergist did a skin-prick test and I was tested as negative for dairy, but positive for wheat. These types of tests are notoriously unreliable. The only way is to eliminate the food, then try them one-by-one.


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## Mike NoLomotil (Jun 6, 2000)

". I was beginning to think he was right for two days but now, my stomach is bothering me again. Has anybody had to go on a complete elimination diet before and had to re-introduce foods into their diet? This is tough for me. I'm also taking flax seed oil. That's supposed to help with my nerves too." _____________________________________The problem with "food intolerance" diets, even those which are set forth by well meaning doctors seeking solutions, and even Brostoffs regimens is that, due to the extreme diversity of the American diet in particular, with its high concentration of processed foods, food analogs, additives, colorings, and intense use of chemicals in the production of meat and vegetable and grain, coupled with the uncertain effects of mixing in genetically modified grains like corn and soy into virtually everything, is that most of the classic diets based upon "isolating probabilities" work over too narrow a spectrum in the context of our exposure to potential loss of oral tolerance to anything within an enormous spectrum.So the classic food-elimination diets are becoming less and less effective at isolating the many possible offending foods and chemicals to which we can lose tolerance via a multitude of mechanisms.Aside from using in vitro assays to isolate food allergy and non-allergic hypersensitivity probabilities, the only approach which, in this situation, has a very high probability of isolating at least the more obvious offending foods or chemicals is either1. the age old stoneage diet approach followed by serial open oral challenges or2. the keeping of a careful, extensive and meticulous dietary intake and symptomology log, delineated hour by hour, for no less than a 2 week period of time..anything less cannot isolate with any certainty a significant number of possible offending foods except for any true food allergy or severely sensitive non-allergic reactions.This book is a good supplement to Brostoffs book, as Professor B provides a very good background on the subjects of food allergy and intolerance, and Guillory provides a few simple tools you can follow along with to construct a dietary intake and symptom log...he also discusses integrative therapies as well.IBS: A DOCTORS PLAN FOR CHRONIC DIGESTIVE TROUBLESBy Gerard Guillory, M.D.; Vanessa Ameen, M.D.; Paul Donovan, M.D.; Jack Martin, Ph.D. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-h...9085785-1742301 "FOOD ALLERGIES AND FOOD INTOLERANCE: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THEIR IDENTIFICTION AND TREATMENT", Professor Jonathan Brostoff , M.D.. Allergy, Immunology and Environmental Medicine, Kings' College, London http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/089...6487508-3420903 Since loss of oral tolerance to foods or chemicals, unlike allergy, results in a type of symptom generating mechanism which is very dose/exposure dependent, and delayed-onset (up to 72 hours) the offending foods and the symptoms can be exceedingly out of sync and thus exceedingly difficult to isolate with accuracy.So one must use tools which follow those rules, not tools which follow food allergy rules wherein does-dependency is not an issue, and rapid onset is generally the rule, so repeatability and identification is much easier.Actual allergy only seems to be responsible for IBS symptoms, in D-types, perhaps 8% of the time based upon extrapolations of work done in Italy by Stefanini...it is the best guess. The rest is non-allergic and this can be very difficult to isolate.If the log approach does not do it one is left with the choice of a value judgment on in vitro testing, or the stoneage diet approach. This can be very effective but is limited in how long you can endure it due to the poor nutritional quality of the diet..supplementation is essential with 100% non-reactive vitamin and mineral preps.This works best for patients who already have a fairly narrow diet to begin with, so finding the "safe base diet" may be easier, and the number of foods to challenge is less.The weak spot here is, as always, you may not attain the provoking dose unless you follow explicit instructions. Many people try it but do not do it properly and are left not only ill still, but even more frustrated.hence the development of alternatives which can help cut to the chase.Eat well. Think well. be well.MNL


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