Total newbie diagnosed with multiple food allergies--help

[loraxc]

Short version:

I just had a skin prick test done and tested "mild to moderate" for allergies to beef, almonds, hazelnuts, corn, cows' milk, soy, black pepper, and broccoli. I tested "severe" for brewer's yeast. I do not eat meat except for occasional fish and I DO eat a LOT of bread, dairy, and soy. I am freaking out about having to eliminate this stuff, wondering if it's necessary, and wondering what to do. The brewer's yeast one was my strongest reaction and seems to be the worst of all--according to the net, I can't have any cheese, fermented foods (so many things!!), or alcohol. I know many skin tests are false positive...??


Long version:
I have never suspected food allergies and with the exception of chicken and beef (I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian who sometimes eats fish), I eat everything. For the past 6-7 months I have been struggling with severe headaches, fatigue, nausea, and malaise. After a whole lot of runarounds including an ER visit and an u/s of my ovaries, I was diagnosed with chronic sinus issues. A head CT showed some sinus inflammation, but before doing surgery, the ENT wanted to test me for allergies. He ran a blood RAST test that showed strong reactions to 27 out of 30 environmental allergens, at which point he said there would be no point to the surgery and that my only option was allergy shots (I have tried all the allergy meds with no luck). I then switched to a new allergist because he offers sublingual immunotherapy--like allergy shots, only it's drops you take under the tongue, and therefore much more convenient. He did a skin prick test for environmental allergies and I reacted like crazy to tons of stuff (much stronger reactions than my food allergy test except for the yeast one) but he also ran a skin prick test for foods, and here we are.

[rhesp1212]

I'm so sorry, but atleast you have some answers as to why you've been feeling badly. The dairy and yeast will be the hardest to take out probably. As far as breads to, you can make your own! My DS can't tolerate yeast or eggs, so I make my own breads. I use 1 tsp. baking soda, 2 tsp. cream of tartar....the more you use, the more it will rise and have bubbles with a nice texture. It is denser than store bought bread and yeast breads, but you can still use it for sandwhiches, etc. Also, if you check in the organic sections of your grocery stores, I believe the Ezekiel breads are free of yeast.

For milk replacement, you can use soy or coconut milk. Coconut yogurt and coconut ice creams are YUMMY too!!! I use the So Delicious brand and it's very good! Nice and creamy. Almond milk, rice milk, oat milk are all good too. I also found a recipe for cashew cream that is wonderful for coffee creamer as it's very thick and creamy.

You can do it!! I know it's overwhelming at first and it will be hard for the first couple of weeks as you and your body adjust to the diet, but I bet you'll feel alot better and that will make it all worth it!

[loraxc]

No almond milk or soy milk as I teste allergic to both of those, too.

I am doing further research and am not yet convinced I need to totally eliminate all these things. However, I am going to try 2-3 weeks of cutting back as much as possible and see how I feel.

I am wondering if there are any yeast-free, cow-dairy-free cheeses...anyone know?

[kjbrown92]

There's a vegan rice cheese made with pea protein that's pretty good. If you're going to through the effort of cutting back, why don't you cut it all out for your 3 week trial, and see where that gets you instead. Your list of ailments seems like it would really benefit from getting better. My DD2 can't have beef, soy, milk, or corn, and DS can't have almonds or black pepper. Here are all of the things you CAN have:

vegetables: all except broccoli and corn
legumes: all of them except soy
meat/fish: all except beef (turkey, duck, chicken, fish, eggs)
fruit: all
grains: all
spices: all except black pepper
do you want me to list them so you can see the variety that you still have?

It's difficult, but not impossible, and you could see how much better you would feel. Also if you take out the things you can control, like the food, then your allergy "bucket" might be less full and your symptoms from the environmental allergies can get better.

[loraxc]

I guess I'm wondering if a mild reaction means a need to completely avoid the foods, or if doing the best I can is likely to help? Trace corn and trace soy are obviously everywhere. I could cut out cheese and milk, I think, but cutting out butter will be super hard...as would cutting out ALL the yeast-containing foods, like vinegar.

[LauraLoo]

You may feel better if you eliminate everything that you are reacting to -- at least until you can get your immune system boosted back up. It's a PITA, but you may find that once your system calms down, you can eat the milder offending foods again. I have mild food allergies and environmental allergies (pollens, molds, mildew, dust, etc.) and have found that once my environmental allergies are taken care of, I can eat my offending foods (within reason) without much reaction. I'd probably feel even better if I avoided those foods altogether, but I have many, many mild food allergies and it would be a very restricted diet.

We avoid all soy (ds is allergic to that as well as peanuts and all tree nuts), so I get that it's in a lot of packaged items. You may want to consider cooking from scratch, if you aren't already, so that you have more control over the ingredients. Start researching substitutes -- and I know that a lot of mama's here have a lot of experience altering favorite recipes so they don't include the offending foods.

Even if you can avoid all offending foods for a month (longer would be better) you will likely feel so much better. But doing the best you can will also help.

HTH!

[LauraLoo]

You may also want to research GAPS diet. If you are allergic to yeast, you may have some gut related issues that may need to be addressed. Your gut represents a lot of your immune system health, and I would venture to guess that if you can work on that, it would really help you.

http://www.gapsdiet.com/

[loraxc]

I do cook from scratch, so the packaged foods aren't as much a problem as eating out (I really love food and our weekly dinner out is one of our few luxuries) and eating foods that others prepare. It also feels really problematic because as a vegetarian, I already follow a restricted diet. I don't know that I can realistically be veg and exclude dairy and soy, but I have been veg for 20 years and it would be a major and disruptive change to begin including meat. I don't even know how to cook meat, and my whole family is veg as well.

I wonder if the yeast allergy is because I started baking bread from scratch at right about the same time as these problems started. I do this 2-3x/week, and also I use a no-knead bread recipe where the dough is out on the counter for a day at a time. I could see how all this would have dramatically upped my yeast exposure.