# Food Sensitivities.... HELP



## tsmed (Dec 18, 2002)

I went to my doctor for recurring IBS symptoms... pain, bloating, burning stomach... you guys know the drill.Anyway, he recommended that I have food sensitivity testing (a blood test). The cost was over $1,000.00 dollars and so far insurance hasn't touched it. However, I am so sick of living this way I was ready to try anything.I went for my results yesterday and was told I CANNOT eat (for the next six weeks) the following foods PERIOD:Brewers YeastCottonseedMushroomWHEATCashewChili PepperDillPineappleCoffeeMilkRiceCabbageCauliflowerClamHoneydewSweet PotatoCola MintStrawberryCantaloupeCherryCrabMilletPumpkin.Along with not being able to eat these food for six weeks, I cannot eat the same food (anything) for more than one day in a row. In other words, I must rotate my foods every three days. If I drink apple juice this morning for breakfast I cannot drink it again for 3 days.I am baffled as to how to fit this into my life. The wheat thing is driving me crazy because I travel and entertain a lot. Has anyone else heard of this or am I dealing with a quacky situation??? Has anyone else had this done.Thanks


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## Mike NoLomotil (Jun 6, 2000)

Hi TSMED:Nope thats the way it works....the only way you are dealing with a quacky situation is if the doctor used a test which only assesses either a limited number of possible hypersensitivity mechanisms, such as IgG only, in which case you may only get partial relief, or if the test were one of a number of oddball tests which simply are inaccurate. If you had an MRT or ALCAT, for example, you have results which will be sensitive and accurate...MRT is newer than ALCAT which is an older generation test, but they were both invented by the same immunologist so they are designed to get to a similar end-game. You can be successful modifying diet with either assuming good QC at the lab. I can only speak for the QC here which is tight tight tight.Also, rotation-elimination dieting has been the standard and rote basic dietary protocol for food allergy and non-allergic hypersensitivity since oh maybe 1956 or so...so the doc is following a widely accepted standard approach.there are other protocols which can produce faster results if combined with certain test methods, but what she/he has instructed you to do is the right thing.Just check these books and you will see what I mean: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/ASIN/088...3369143-6824157 ï¿½FOOD ALLERGIES AND FOOD INTOLERANCE: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THEIR IDENTIFICTION AND TREATMENTï¿½, Professor Jonathan Brostoff , M.D.. Allergy, Immunology and Environmental Medicine, Kingsï¿½ College, London http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/089...6487508-3420903 FOOD ALLERGY AND INTOLERANCE, Professor Jonathan Brostoff, MD, Stephen Challacombe, MD (NEW 2002) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/070...product-details Now the problem usually comes when the patient is given instructions and simply told to go and sin no more. This is tough to do.What works a bit better is to give the patient a very specific three or five day rotation plan to which she/he must adhere...or a variation on the stoneage approach which involves phased food reintroduction.STRUCTURE is what patients do better with than "void these reactive foods, eat only safe foods, rotate them so you don't repeat any food in a 3 to 5 day period"...like yourself you have never done menu planning probably do not cook your own food and as you say eat out a lot. these are all high risk factors for failure of dietary modification.So why does the doctor only do this? Time time time. Many simply do not have the luxury of time to sit and prepare the tools they really need as the way they are paid these days makes it impossible to be Dr. Welby anymore. Sux but it is not their faultï¿½reality.So it is best for labs that do this kind of testing to provide those tools for the doctor and patient already structured so what you have is specific plan given in limited face time as it is already built to the specific patient. This is something we do here if the doctor wants the tools we can provideï¿½.not everybody does that some just send test results.In this case the doctor is doing what all doctors do when they give a patient a treatment: this is your treatment plan or your prescription...follow it and you will feel better. Don't and you will not. It is up to you.This works well with pills...bad with lifestyle modification. What is helpful is to get a referral to a dietician qualified in counselling people with food allergy and intolerance in how to restructure their living habits to accommodate their bodily needs which are in conflict with their desires, or what is convenient.I personally had to face this 10 years ago after 30 year with IBS. Luckily I am, like those who did succeed in this way, strongly self-directed and highly motivated as I was damn sick with my IBS.So if stopping the pain and diarrhea meant no more spaghetti...then no matter what I did not eat spaghetti or pizza or any other Italian food. Period. And my symptoms were reduced. If it meant eating steamed rice and no potatoes then I ate steamed rice. Period.When I went to a restaurant I did and still do the following.I find what appears to be a safe food on the menu.I tell the waitress very specifically that I have severe food ALLERGY (nobody understands "sensitivity" ...oooo poor baby is sensitive....you have just been been tuned-out). You say ALLERGY and people think of someone going into shock and croaking in the dining room. WORK that! This gets their attention...they could care less about the diarrhea you get later that night.So I tell her, for example, I want this chicken just grilled. Plain. No seasoning....is it marinated or is it fresh? Don't know? Please ask the chef if the rice is plain, no onions please, and if the chicken can be cooked plain...no seasonings...tell him I have food allergies and I am not the guy you want going-off in the dining room here because someonejust picked the onion bits out of the fried rice and gave me that...Anyway an approach along those lines is required or you will still get episodes from eating out. If they cannot accommodate me I will not eat the food. Period. Eat elsewhere or later .I am pretty good at that as I too have ALWAYS (for the last 20 years) traveled alot on business....but I now whenever possible stay at the Residence Innn instead of the Embassy suits...or one of the apartment hotels...somewhere with a fridge and a 2 burner stove so I can cook my own food when I do not have to entertain-out.At home my Colombian wife just cannot bring herself to restrain herself from filling my meals with flavor enhancersï¿½.so I cook my own food when I get home from work. Its easier and better than spending the night on the bathroom floor.The trick is first acceptance and valuing. We cannot escape the fact that our body has lost tolerance to certain foods that we now cannot eat or they provoke symptoms. For whatever the reason (there are a number of ways this can happen which are less important that acknowledging it did, and we need to eat only tolerated foods to feel well).We cannot control that. We have to choose whether it is worth it to feel better in a month or so, then forever, or if we cannot overcome our attachments to our food but don't want to really say it is that, so we find a way to rationalize that "this is a bunch of BS anyway...who would do such a thing...it cannot be done...it is disreputable...". I work with people (patients doctors dieticians) in this field so I get to see thousands of circumstances, and so I have come to understand the conflicts we face.Sadly this rationalization is usually not the case these days. The whole approach is legit. Where the problem lies is in what you are experiencing...the provider may not provide a support system for lifestyle modification. Instead he may provide the same thing he always provided you: here is the solution go and do it. When its a pill its damn easy. This is not but there is no better solution EXCEPT if the healthcare system would accomodate the need for more support in this kind of a case.Hundreds of insurance plans do that...pay for such testing and pay for more face-time to support the patient...but then there are those that do not since they have the premium money in the bank and it is cheaper to keep it and just pay for an exam and some pills in the short term view...they are in the business (like everyone in the world) to take in more $$$ than they put out. So some at this time see some things in the short term view not the long term view...that if they did this for you instead of spending $3,500 a year on your doctor face time and drugs for the rest of your life...maybe a $100,000 or more of cost...if they covered your test and the cost of a dietician to implement the diet NOW they could save tens of thousands if you then feel well enough to not be going back al the time for your IBS problems, or to keep consuming whatever the RX du jour is.Anyway they are probably not discriminating against you rather doing business the way they think they should do it.In the meantime...maybe talk with the doc and say you could use some help from an RD can he refer you to one and maybe the insurance will cover it if he does...maybe not.OR you can contact the local ADA chapter and ask for RD's who work with food allergy and intolerance patients so you get the full benefit of your investment in finding what foods you were reactive th yeah I was a wheat-positive person too. So I needed to earn how to use other grains. Did you get any instruction in that?OOPS after 9 gotta goCU later if I can help further.MNLPSIf you cannot get a dietician let me know. I can help you with that as I know RD's who work with food intolerance victims and who are very good at it. They can take your results and build you a plan to follow so you don't have to f


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## Mike NoLomotil (Jun 6, 2000)

PSI would point out that you will not likely regain tolerance to those foods (depending upon what test method was used) in 6 weeks and you should not count on that. 6 months is more realistic (of 100% avoidance otherwsie you get into the "masking" phenomenenon)...and in some cases you may never regain oral tolerance.nonalergic hypsersensitivity can be labile, but some sensitivies are eprmamnene tand we never know wich ones untile we challenge. I have some things I stayed off of now for 10 years and they are still "repeatable provokers" if I eat them.But I did regain tolerance for wheat, tomoto ona limited basis, basil, oregano, gralic on a limited basis but NOT onion. So I can eat some Italian again but I gotta cook it without onion and use mild tomato sauces.But being able to have a couple slices of pizza once week again after almost ten years is like Christmas eaxch time!







MNL


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## Jan LEAP RD (May 19, 2002)

Hi Tsmed,Too bad your doc didn't hook you up with an RD that has food sensitivity and rotation diet expertise.A couple quick hints. Make yourself a list of all the foods that were tested and are safe. This should be the basis of your rotation diet. Focus on "what's left".As to a rotation diet, it's best to put your allowed foods into 3 columns (if the lab didn't) Day 1, Day 2, Day 3. When you prepare a day one meal, fix 2-3 servings, freeze the leftovers and label them with the appropriate day, . . . then you get to take them out when that day rolls around again. And, no, it's not easy. But, I remind my clients that you can spend energy choosing foods carefully and felling well; or you can spend your energy feeling bad. . .


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