food allergies or sensitivities

[neetling]

Can you have an allergy or sensitivity and only react sometimes? I love popcorn and sometimes when I eat it, I am fine. Others, I get itchy. No hives, just itchy. It seems worse with the popcorn than regular corn.

My youngest also seems to be sensitive to red or orange food dyes. Sometimes his eczema flares (immediately) and occasionally a new food with a dye will give him diarrhea.

I try to be careful about what he eats. He does always seem to have a smattering of eczema bumps on his cheeks.

[DevaMajka]

I have no idea, but could it have to do with different brands?
Could ds be reacting to one specific food color, and not others?

[neetling]

I don't know about my son's sensitivities. My mom kept giving him those orange circus peanuts candy (GROSS!) even after he had a reaction. I had to remind her every time not to give them to him. Then h had a drink with red dye in it and got horrible diarrhea. Like within an hour he was making red poop.

He hadn't had the drink before. I guess they could have been the same red dye, but I didn't check.

I buy the same brand of popcorn kernals.

[stephienoodle]

For me, the "sometimes" reactions happen when I've had too many foods that cause "sometimes" reactions at a time. I can have sunflower oil in isolation and I can have trace amounts of egg in isolation and do fine. If I have sunflower oil and a trace amount of egg in the same day, I get a reaction.

You might have some low-level allergies that you don't realize, and so then if you have some of those foods at the same time that you consume another food that you have a low-level allergy to (for instance, the corn scenario), then voila... itchy/eczema/diarrhea as a reaction because you've had a few more allergens than your body can suppress.

[DevaMajka]

I do know that food chemicals can be (are?) bucket reactions- so a certain amount are fine, but once the "bucket" is overfull, you get a reaction.

I also read that some people only have reactions to one food if they've ingested another, similar to what the pp said.

It seems like it would be difficult, but probably worthwhile, to figure it out!