So I have this weird theory....

[changingseasons]

I started thinking about this after our SPT last week. I'm seeing how things are fitting together, but I can't figure out why.

So my theory is this: when DD eats an allergenic food at the same time as a safe food, she is sensitized to the safe food.

Here are 2 examples:

1. Buckwheat used to be DD's only safe "grain". We ate it every day for a year and a half- waffles, muffins, tortillas, you name it. Then I decided to trial sunflower seeds. I'm sure we had them before this, and they seemed ok (but I'm not positive.) I thought- hey, why not add them to our waffle mix and get a little extra protein in our carb-heavy breakfast? So I ground them up with the buckwheat groats for the waffle flour. Within a week or two, DD's poops were loose, and started having blood in them. I finally figured out it was the sunflower seeds and stopped using them. Things got a little better, but then got worse again. I eventually stopped buckwheat for a while, and she went back to normal. I've tried buckwheat at least 3 times since then (since I have such a hard time believing that she's suddenly allergic to it!), and every time she gets loose stools with blood within 24 hours. Then, next SPT, we test buckwheat.... and it's POSITIVE. Keep in mind that we had gotten her to baseline while eating buckwheat, and had never ever ever seen any sort of reaction to it before this.
2. All last summer we ate coconut milk ice cream. YUM. DD would have 2 or 3 bites from my bowl, but never a huge amount. I started out with just coconut milk, honey, and cocoa. But the recipe called for vanilla, and I finally got brave enough to add it. Seemed to be fine. (I think I used vanilla maybe 3 or 4 times total. I had also started using palm or coconut sugar at this time rather than honey, which might explain why she's still fine with honey.) Then, on DD's birthday, she got her very own (small) bowl of ice cream - maybe about 6-8 bites worth, and ended up with full body hives. Hives on top of hives on top of hives. We did a RAST, and coconut was POSITIVE. Again, we had been eating it for months with no apparent reaction before this. And I never would have made this connection except that we had a SPT last week, and since we've tested pretty much everything they have to test, I added the last few options which were spices. Her vanilla reaction was the biggest she's ever had. Bigger than her cow's milk and tree nut reactions.
3. I need to figure out how salmon fits in this theory, if only I could find my old food journal.... Salmon was another thing that we ate for more than a month before she suddenly got hives. hmmmm

So.... at first I thought it must just be that food #1 is causing gut damage, which lead to leaking & sensitization of food #2. But that theory was blown when I realized that she didn't sensitize to any of the other foods that she ate during those days, it was ONLY to foods that were eating in the same bite. Like she didn't sensitize to the rest of her dinner (probably broccoli or zucchini) when she reacted to chicken, even though they were eaten at the same meal. It's only when the foods are actually combined in cooking/processing.

Any thoughts? Why would the food combining specifically lead to sensitization? Is it that the foods are both leaking through the gut wall together, and the body sees them as one new food to be attacked?

[rhesp1212]

Interesting theory....but I'm sure you probably know that anyone can suddenly become allergic to anything at any given time. It could be as easy as the bucket theory.....for example, maybe buckwheat was safe and over time she began to get a little sensative to it, and with repeated exposure, her allergy bucket eventually filled up and spilled over creating a reaction. My DS does this too....even on a rotation diet, over time he will almost always become sensative to whatever it is he was eating. He can be doing well and eating great and then all of a sudden his rash reappears, his reflux kicks up and lo and behold he has become sensative to something he's been eating all along. It drives me crazy, and I can't figure it out either!

[changingseasons]

I do know that. But we've never had anything slowly get sensitized. With these 3 things, she's gone from perfectly fine to full-body hives (or bloody stool), overnight.

We've also been eating pretty much THE same 8-ish foods for over 2 years, and she's never sensitized to any of it.

Also- when you say he becomes sensitive, are you talking an intolerance or an actual IgE allergy? I think that's a big difference too- I think sensitivities can come and go, depending on your gut health, liver health, stomach acid levels, all that stuff. But IgE allergies aren't something that should do that.

[lil_miss_understood]

I really have no awesome ideas to throw out for you but I'm coming to lurk and offer support.

[mamafish9]

So she is sensitizing if a "safe" food is blended enough with a "non-safe" food that her body can't/isn't separating before it hits her bloodstream (and causes a reaction).

That brings up a couple of thoughts for me - one, it's maybe not the "same bite" that matters, but that the foods are joined in some way her body doesn't easily separate (e.g. baked goods and ice cream the ingredients are "melded"). So she'd maybe be OK with whole sunflower seeds in the pancakes (largely separate food item), but grinding them mixed them with flour so that what passed out through her stomach was still a buckwheat + sunflower food particle.

Second, it seems like she must also have leaky gut, for the combined food particle to enter her blood stream. But it sounds like what is happening is that if lamb or zucchini leak, her body doesn't react. If a food particle that includes any unsafe part leaks, then she reacts to everything in that food particle.

Meaning 1) immune system on serious hyperdrive, and 2) if you're going to trial new foods, the safest way to do it is not prepared in a way that isn't easily separated from other foods in the same bites (so probably trial a food totally separately, but at least not baked into things).

At least that's where my brain goes off your initial idea .

Have you done an intestinal permeability stool test for her? It measures leaky gut - maybe one thing to look at.

The other thing I wonder is that if NAET or something like the sublingual allergy thing (where they use minute doses to desensitize someone to a food allergy - wasn't it you looking into that?) could get her back on a food, that maybe you now have an insight that would help you keep more foods for her, by preparing them all separately, rather than baking/processing anything together.

[changingseasons]

Originally Posted by mamafish9

That brings up a couple of thoughts for me - one, it's maybe not the "same bite" that matters, but that the foods are joined in some way her body doesn't easily separate (e.g. baked goods and ice cream the ingredients are "melded").

Yeah, I rethought that after I typed it. Because obviously, a bite isn't going to stay together all the way through the digestive system. But something about cooking/processing the foods together... (I would like to say that the ice cream mixed was cooked before freezing, because I usually did this, but not always.. so it may not have been.)

But then I'm not convinced that it's a gut thing with IgE either. And actually, these reactions are happening within minutes, so obviously way before they reach her gut. Of course the proteins could have been leaked the previous time she ate them....

We did the stool test that showed good digestion/absorption and massive gut inflammation, but I'm not sure it checked for permeability.

[chlobo]

Just out of curiosity, what did the doctor want to do about the inflammation. The GI DD saw said that steroids would be the course of action if they had found inflammation (we never did the test).

Also, the intestinal permeability test is different for the digestive test. You drink two substances and they measure how much comes out in the pee vs. how much should come out.

[changingseasons]

Originally Posted by chlobo

Just out of curiosity, what did the doctor want to do about the inflammation. The GI DD saw said that steroids would be the course of action if they had found inflammation (we never did the test).

Good question. He wanted to tackle the bacterial issue first and ignore everything else (or maybe he thought that would just resolve everything else?) But then we did a local stool test a couple weeks later which showed NO bacterial overgrowth , so we've never really followed up on it. But I wasn't really convinced about the inflammation test either... 2 of the inflammation markers are lysozyme and lactoferrin, both of which are components of breastmilk. And they couldn't really answer my question on whether the fact that she was breastfeeding could skew those numbers. So... we just never went back to that doc, and have been ignoring the tests since.

[momofmine]

Gosh cs, I don't have any ideas, but I just want to give you hugs and tell you that you are doing an amazing job for your dd being such a good detective.
I wish you had enough foods that you could do a rotation diet. Have you ever tried that? My good friend had a child like this years and years ago, except her reaction was eczema, but it was really severe. But she was just allergic to so many foods and it kept getting worse. She finally eliminated everything by trial and got to baseline and then did a rotation diet for years. Her child is now a teenager and can eat almost anything. I know eczema isn't as worrisome as hives though. I'm sorry.

[changingseasons]

Yeah... she doesn't have enough foods to rotate.

[Theloose]

fly by...

Look up the complement system as it relates to the immune system. Basically, there are the antigens (on food) and antibodies (that your body produces) but in order for any of the system to do anything, it requires the 'go ahead' from the complement system. So if it's on overdrive due to an allergic food, then it seems to make sense that it would likely label another food that happens to be there as bad as well.

Don't know how to relate that to eating in the same bite vs melded together vs whatever. Maybe it has to do with repeat exposure? How often did she eat vanilla or sunflower seeds with lamb or zucchini vs with the buckwheat or coconut?

[changingseasons]

She's never eaten those foods combined, but has eaten them within hours of each other. I will check out the complement system tomorrow with fresh eyes- thanks.