MSG causing food allergies?

[Sarah Walsh]

does anyone have any knowledge/experience with this? Or with MSG intolerance in general? ds2 started off with a bad 'dribble rash' at about 2-3mths old and the progressed to developing eczema on the rest of his body. I was given a small book by a friend about this womans journey with curing her daughters eczema. Her theory was the msg has caused food allergies, so she removed the allergenic foods as well as msg for 5 weeks, eczema was completely gone, then reintroduced allergenic foods (but stayed away from msg) and her daughter didn't react.

So, tried this with ds (not removing allergenic foods...just removing msg), and his skin cleared up. Yay! But now he's got patches of eczema again and a spotty rash around his mouth. Neither he nor I have consumed msg in 2.5 wks (he picked up a crumb at playgroup :/) . So I've read some more and apparently foods high in free glutamic acid can be a problem as well, such as bone broth, fermented foods, tomato paste etc. I also suspect that he is reacting to dairy as eliminating this has helped clear up the last few spots in the past.

So now my problem is that I'm into WAP/traditional foods, and how do I follow this without eating fermented foods? And stock? And raw milk? Gaaagh..frustrating.

Plus I'm now wondering if the last bit of msg that he got into has caused another food allergy *sigh*

So...any success stories/suggestions?

Sarah

[kjbrown92]

MSG showed up as a severe intolerance on DS's ALCAT blood test. We removed it 2 years ago. Haven't tested it since. Other high glutamate things (like broth) don't affect him, but about 30 other foods do, in various ways. Are you keeping a food journal?

[mamafish9]

There is a big difference between MSG, free glutamates, the amino acid glutamine, and bound glutamate. So raw milk, for example, has lots of glutamine, tomatoes have lots of bound glutamate. My husband, who gets awful migraines if he gets ANY free glutamates or MSG, drinks raw milk daily without a problem.

Sounds to me like your son is sensitive to glutamates. Ferments are a problem sometimes for glutamate sensitivity if foods are high in glutamates to begin with (fermenting frees them). So DH can't do fermented CLO for example, but 24 hour homemade yogurt isn't an issue. Bone broth is a problem, slow risen bread, no.

You could also try supplementing with low dose GABA - that can help balance glutamate levels in the body and reduce his sensitivity. THat may help you son handle the much lower levels of free glutamate in dairy.

But I think the issue in these cases is glutamates themselves, not glutamates causing other food allergies.

[Theloose]

Originally Posted by mamafish9

But I think the issue in these cases is glutamates themselves, not glutamates causing other food allergies.

But if you're reacting so strongly to glutamates, then presumably you have glutamate/GABA issues somewhere, which means messed up cell signaling. And depending on what organ system is taking the hit, I could totally see the glutamates causing other food issues.

OP, did you see the glutamate/GABA thread?

[mamafish9]

Totally agree Shannon - but that's a longer term impact. I don't think the OP's son picking up some crumbs at playgroup suddenly caused a new food allergy. I can't think of any mechanism where it could happen with that kind of speed (and triggered by that small an amount).

[Sarah Walsh]

Yes, I had a look at the thread about glutamate/GABA. A lot of it was over my head, but perhaps I'll go and have another look. What else is high in free glutamate? (maybe I'll google it...). Maybe there's something else that I'm eating that has high free glutamate that I don't know about.

[SpottedFoxx]

does anyone have any knowledge/experience with this? Or with MSG intolerance in general? ds2 started off with a bad 'dribble rash' at about 2-3mths old and the progressed to developing eczema on the rest of his body. I was given a small book by a friend about this womans journey with curing her daughters eczema. Her theory was the msg has caused food allergies, so she removed the allergenic foods as well as msg for 5 weeks, eczema was completely gone, then reintroduced allergenic foods (but stayed away from msg) and her daughter didn't react.

So... her daughter had an MSG allergy. The MSG wasn't causing an allergy but was the allergy source.

I have severely allergic to MSG however I have no problem with naturally occurring glutamates.