Salicylate/Amine/Histamine Sensitive Tribe - Page 3

[Theloose]

Originally Posted by WuWei

do you mean deficiencies in folate/B12 could create a block?

Yeah, oops. I just went and edited

Thanks for the chromium links, I'll check them out. And yeah, I'm frustrated that picolinate seems obviously bad/useless, yet all the studies are using that form. Sort of explains why the studies are inconclusive

[Adamsmama]

Has anyone felt that their intolerance got worse after a major illness or a pregnancy? That is one thing I've been struggling with. I've had 3 kids and after DS1, I never had any of these issues, after DS2 was a year old I had a major stomach bug and a week or so later is when I first remember having my hand swell up while eating (must have been high in histamine -- leftover pasta salad with lots of veggies) and then months later I had several episodes of throat tightening which would go away hours later. Then a year later DD was born (I felt fine during the pregnancy!) and then about a 6 weeks after she was born I started to have my asthma inflamed after eating and then another month later my tongue started to tingle with high histamine/sals foods. I even contintued to eat a sandwhich (older swiss cheese -- had been opened for a week in my refrig) one night and my tongue got tingly/numb and then a few bites later I had the worst asthma attack I've ever had -- thankfully my inhaler worked and the symptoms stopped after I stopped eating. It definately seemed dose related. The failsafe diet has helped -- and I do not continue to have symptoms. I've really wondered if I'm deficient in some enzyme or vitamine/mineral. I stopped bfing DD at 20 months because I read that this could be zinc related and one way to tell if you are deficient in zinc (women are usually more deficient during bfing, I read) is to look at your finger nails -- if you have white spots, that is a sign. Well, every single finger had white spots -- within a month of weaning the spots were gone and not back. I just wondered how much of this is all related. We would love more children but am just wondering if I need to pump up my vitamins/minerals first ... and what could help during bfing so my body doesn't get depleted.

[FireWithin]

I've been having major histamine issue for the past couple of days: itchy eyes and ears. I don't know if it is environemental or purely nutritional. I am now taking Perque B12 and am wondering if it is unbalancing my folate (I get folate in my multi-vit Thorne). Maybe tomorrow I will take a separate folate and see if it helps.


Oils - hide my head in a bag smilie
We are mostly healthy oil, EXCEPT for the massive amount of potato chips we eat. That needs to change. So I am looking into safe oil kind, and making my own. This should make a difference for us.

I really am determined to get the histamine lowered and the inflammation lowered.

GTF chromium - does anyone have a brand suggestion?

[JaneS]

I have personally used Jarrow GTF chromium but it might have corn and such.

[FireWithin]

I just got country life gtf chromium at a local whole foods. I will look into a higher quality in a future internet order.

[fruitfulmomma]

Salicylic Acid Sensitivity and Reye's... Is there a connection?

Still trying to fit the puzzle pieces together and am wondering if this is one of them... My mother's cousin died from Reye's and as such she never allowed us to take aspirin and I don't give it to my kids but I did not understand until the last couple of days that the issue with aspirin and Reye's was this acid. So... Now what? (I am not sure I could get any more info about this child because if I understand correctly his mother commited suicide shortly after his death. His grandmother is still alive but I don't know that she would remember any specifics about his health prior. Maybe it doesn't matter.) Any thoughts on whether or not this means anything?

[JaneS]

Must be as the symptoms are similar and "they" do not know exactly how Reyes syndrome is triggered except by aspirin or salicylate containing medication.

I happen to have come across this mention:
http://blog.plantpoisonsandrottenstu...eyes-syndrome/

[quelindo]

We've been doing the Failsafe diet for four days now, to see if it helps my son's goosebumpy skin and disturbed sleep. OMG, I am going CRAZY. I feel like generally we eat pretty well. I like to cook and I make a lot of stews/curries/soups. Flavorful and nutrient-packed stuff, which my son eats with no problem (he just turned four). But on this diet...ick. It's all bland and boring and the only flavor is salt and sugar.

My son's first night of sleep was HORRIBLE but each night has gotten a little better. I guess I'm just looking for someone to tell me that I won't have to eat this way forever. Today I had some pizza in the oven for lunch (we've been doing GF/DF/EF crust with kidney bean puree as a topping) and my son couldn't wait -- he wanted something to eat right then -- and he said, "I can't have a fruit leather, I can't have applesauce, I can't have yogurt...so what can I have?" I felt AWFUL. I just looked at him because I didn't KNOW what he could have. I finally gave him some potato chips.

After that I made some oatmeal cookies that are just meh. All this sugar is giving me headaches, and I hate that I'm feeding my son this crap.

[Adamsmama]

I've been on this diet for about a year now ... and I've never felt better. I know it is really tough at first and it seems a little unhealthy because of how strict it is (hardly any fruits and vegetables) but I feel so much better on it.

[mamafish9]

Failsafe didn't work for us - with needing to be GFDF as well, it was just too limited. What I found is that most veggies weren't a problem, and neither were most herbs/spices in moderation. One thing to try is fresh herbs - a lot of flavor for the amount you use, and my son never reacted to any of them, even at his most sensitive. Spices are really high in sals, but you don't use that much, so the total sals going to your body is often less than a bigger serving of a less sals heavy food.

I also found that failsafe had us eating WAY too many omega 6 fats, and that actually made things worse. As I think I have said before in this thread, I believe a big piece of what helped us go from very few sals to a moderate amount (in a pretty short time, a couple of months), is balancing omega 3s and 6s in our diet. We eat more 3s, but cutting back on 6s was crucial. So we use ghee, palm shortening, and then coconut oil as soon as we could tolerate it.

I see sals sensitivity as a sign that something is out of balance - so eating low sals manages the symptoms for a while, so that you can get things back in balance. For us, that meant balancing omegas, increasing zinc and mag, and supporting sulfation (we're still working on this, but it has improved a lot).

[quelindo]

Originally Posted by Adamsmama

I've been on this diet for about a year now ... and I've never felt better. I know it is really tough at first and it seems a little unhealthy because of how strict it is (hardly any fruits and vegetables) but I feel so much better on it.

I'm glad it's working for you, Adamsmama. That's great that you're feeling better.

Originally Posted by mamafish9

Failsafe didn't work for us - with needing to be GFDF as well, it was just too limited.).

This is kind of what I've been wondering about. I mean, if we could eat eggs and dairy this would be so much easier! This is reminding me of when I tried to do the SCD as a vegan...just not possible.

Originally Posted by mamafish9

What I found is that most veggies weren't a problem, and neither were most herbs/spices in moderation. One thing to try is fresh herbs - a lot of flavor for the amount you use, and my son never reacted to any of them, even at his most sensitive. Spices are really high in sals, but you don't use that much, so the total sals going to your body is often less than a bigger serving of a less sals heavy food.

I use a fair amount of spices in my cooking -- say, a few tablespoons in an entire dish (one pound of chicken plus vegetables in a meal that goes over rice, for instance). Do you think that's still not that much?

I feel like a big baby saying this, but I miss the meals I normally make! Wah! I mean, I can be very disciplined. I was vegetarian and then vegan for ten years before I decided I was healther eating TF, then we cut out gluten and have been GF for 2.5 years, and we have been egg- and dairy-free since February.

So avoiding certain things and working around them in general is normally a challenge I don't mind, but I can't seem to handle this. Plus I'm not sure if it's even necessary, which is frustrating to me. My son's sleep has not drastically improved (he still has little disturbances at night) and his skin is the same. It's only going on day five, but I had really hoped to see improvement by now.

My son is asking for snacks and food to eat, and I'd feel fine saying, "No fruit, but you can have leftover Indian Chicken or Stir-Fry" (or whatever yummy, healthy food we had the night before). It just feels wrong to give him the stuff I've been giving him -- pizza with bean topping, potato chips, pears in syrup, oatmeal cookies. WAY too much sugar and starch, IMO.

Maybe I'll go one more day and then just try no fruit (including no tomatoes?) and other obviously high salicylate foods.

Originally Posted by mamafish9

I also found that failsafe had us eating WAY too many omega 6 fats, and that actually made things worse. As I think I have said before in this thread, I believe a big piece of what helped us go from very few sals to a moderate amount (in a pretty short time, a couple of months), is balancing omega 3s and 6s in our diet. We eat more 3s, but cutting back on 6s was crucial. So we use ghee, palm shortening, and then coconut oil as soon as we could tolerate it.

I see sals sensitivity as a sign that something is out of balance - so eating low sals manages the symptoms for a while, so that you can get things back in balance. For us, that meant balancing omegas, increasing zinc and mag, and supporting sulfation (we're still working on this, but it has improved a lot).

Are you still DF and using ghee? I've been avoiding it because I read differing opinions on whether or not it's free of dairy proteins.

[quelindo]

Originally Posted by chlobo

Would having to pee a lot count? DD frequently will pee and then after say she has to pee again. Rinse, repeat 3 or 4 times. I'm wondering if its related to a food chemical. We haven't journaled for her so I guess that would be a place to start.

The Failsafe people say this is related to salicylates, I believe.

[quelindo]

Mamafish9, I'm sorry if I missed this -- but what symptoms was your son having?

Someone suggested to me that nightshades could be causing a problem for my son. Do any of you have any experience with that? Could they cause goosebumpy skin and sleep disturbances?

[perstephone]

Hi
My son has a salicylate thing. We've been using the list at Plants, Poisons... to determine what we could and could not eat. It's been about six months, and he's doing pretty well. We will occasionally get a flare-up and broken sleep, most recently when we were out of town and not as able to control what he was eating.

By way of trying to widen his acceptable tolerance we've been supplementing with B12, folate, TMG, and zinc on top of his usual multi-vite and also we've been giving him a No-Phenol. Don't know if the enzymes are making a difference, but assume it can't really hurt. Up until I killed off our kefir, he was getting that... oh, and magnesium by way of epsom salts.

And since I posted this (when we finally suspected the sals), food has been so restricted. I've been lurking and read the thread Mamafish started re: lower sals in vine ripened, heirloom fruits and veggies, and thought about maybe giving some things that we've been avoiding a shot if I could find a locally grown source.

In my constant attempts at finding things we can eat (because, man, I'm sick and tired of cabbage, leeks, potatoes, and chayote with garlic every blessed day), I came across a new sals content list- it's based on Food Composition and nutrition tables by Souci, Fachmann and Kraut (I think written in German, and the site I found referencing it is originally in Italian). In any case, it's more recent than the 1985 Swain list.
It says we can eat cherries! And coconut! And blackberries!
I am hesitant, but holy cow, I think we're going to trial some extra foods (our problem is salicylate, we don't have any issue with other phenols or amines or whatever- so far as we can tell).

I just thought I'd offer the link, because I know that any new food is good for us- I bet for you guys, too.
Eurosalus (in English) Natural salicylates, Natural Acetylsalicytic Acid (ASA)

[mamafish9]

Coconut works fine for us now, I can eat cherries (don't know about DS, he won't eat them), and berries are still very, very, very iffy. I have learned that for fruits and veggies especially, growing conditions really impact the sals content, so I don't trust any list any more...

New mama, 6 months ago sals constipated DS so badly that it took us MONTHS to get him pooping again. He got a stuffy nose, interupted sleep (like up from 2-6am frequently), general itchiness, and a rash on his cheeks. The rash didn't happen when we ate lots of sals, it only started occurring once we backed off of sals, and then I would accidentally overload him (in the beginning, this was EASY to do through breastmilk).

We've been supping zinc, mag, molybdenum, and some other stuff, although I think it is those first three that have made the most difference. I had berries on my crepes two days ago and no reaction at all, so we have made a LOT of progress in 6 months.

[perstephone]

I hear you about not trusting lists. I'm just stoked that maybe I was automatically rejecting some things that stand a chance of being tolerated.
I'm a little confused by the (apparently) common knowledge that organically grown=more sals. Well, not confused, really, but not sure which to go for (which I suppose is the definition of confused. erm). Sals or insecticides?
Meh.

[mamafish9]

Originally Posted by New Mama

I
I use a fair amount of spices in my cooking -- say, a few tablespoons in an entire dish (one pound of chicken plus vegetables in a meal that goes over rice, for instance). Do you think that's still not that much?

My son is asking for snacks and food to eat, and I'd feel fine saying, "No fruit, but you can have leftover Indian Chicken or Stir-Fry" (or whatever yummy, healthy food we had the night before). It just feels wrong to give him the stuff I've been giving him -- pizza with bean topping, potato chips, pears in syrup, oatmeal cookies. WAY too much sugar and starch, IMO.

Maybe I'll go one more day and then just try no fruit (including no tomatoes?) and other obviously high salicylate foods.

Are you still DF and using ghee? I've been avoiding it because I read differing opinions on whether or not it's free of dairy proteins.

Yup, we use ghee - DS' doesn't appear sensitive to trace amounts of dairy, if there are any in the ghee, so we've been fine with it. And it's yummy and full of vitamins, so I'd say give it a try.

I hear you on the average "low sals" diet being full of junk. That's why I just started using some common sense to blend that with my idea of healthy eating.

I will say though, Indian food and stuff has a LOT of spices. That would have triggered sals for my DS early on (and only with ME eating it, not him). I'd definitely try some other ways of making food tasty for a while - I've really enjoyed experimenting with fresh herbs.

Originally Posted by perstephone

I hear you about not trusting lists. I'm just stoked that maybe I was automatically rejecting some things that stand a chance of being tolerated.
I'm a little confused by the (apparently) common knowledge that organically grown=more sals. Well, not confused, really, but not sure which to go for (which I suppose is the definition of confused. erm). Sals or insecticides?
Meh.

Yup. I challenged most things that I *wanted* back for nutrition reasons, with the exception of high sals fruits. And I don't knew where you're reading organic = more sals??? Vine/tree ripened = less sals, so I just buy local (which around here is all grown with organic methods). Again, go for the common sense - it is possible to deal with sals sensitivity without living on pear syrup . I also know that for my DS, it's not just a pure amounts thing with the sals - apples still bug him, and those are lower sals than some other things he does fine with. So use the lists as a starting point, but then just watch your kid and learn what triggers things for them.

THe other thing I do with sals is experiment for breakfast/lunch. Then if I get a reaction, immediate Epsom salts bath. That combo gets the reactions over by nighttime for us, so his sleep wasn't disrupted.

[perstephone]

Originally Posted by mamafish9

And I don't knew where you're reading organic = more sals??? Vine/tree ripened = less sals, so I just buy local (which around here is all grown with organic methods).

Here's one on the SA content of conventionally grown tomatoes vs. organic:
European Journal of Nutrition


This is the only other actual study I could find- and it's kind of strange. They tested packaged soups, organic vs not. Everything else I found was just repeating one of these two studies.
Salicylic acid in soups prepared from organically and non-organically grown vegetable

[Theloose]

Originally Posted by mamafish9

And I don't knew where you're reading organic = more sals??? Vine/tree ripened = less sals, so I just buy local (which around here is all grown with organic methods).

Sals are a natural pesticide, and as the food ripens, the sals are converted into antioxidants. So organic foods would be higher in natural pesticides (sals) and once ripe, antioxidants. So maybe it's just extra important that the organic stuff is fully ripened?

[perstephone]

Originally Posted by whoMe

So maybe it's just extra important that the organic stuff is fully ripened?

I think this is probably accurate.
Happy eating!