Wellness Wednesday: That Food Allergy May Not Be a Food Allergy

Back when I was about twelve, I realized that my mouth immediately itched after eating an apple one day. Shortly thereafter, I realized that peaches brought the same reaction.

By the time I was in college, on one of many trips to Chickfilla, I realized that eating their fries resulted in the strangest swollen feeling in my throat behind my nose. As time went on, that reaction broadened to causing extreme stomach pain and other such issues.

As college went on, I started having more and more stomach and gut issues, leading me to suspect even more food allergies. I finally cut out milk too, as my stomach seemed to hurt after having it at breakfast alongside a bagel or muffins. [Now with the clarity of retrospect, I see that the culprit was more so the gluten in the main meal and not the milk I had with it, but that's not the point of today's post.]

Once my health really took a nosedive and I became a bit more educated on names for my problems, I realized I had IBS, along with all these food allergies I seemed to have. I never knew what food would be the culprit next, as my stomach problems, obviously, just got worse. Finally going gluten-free a couple years ago eliminated having stomach pain after every single meal, but I was still having issues.

When I began my life-changing treatment last fall and learned that I actually had 6200 different, treatable problems all ganging up on me and not just one unexplainable, untreatable problem of fibromyalgia, one of the many tests to lead to that conclusion was an allergy test, which I had never had done before because I figured my body's reactions to those foods pretty well spoke for themselves.

While the test did not include all the foods I'd suspected, the results showed that I may not actually be allergic to potatoes (since it wasn't in my system, it couldn't gauge that), I was actually only allergic to sesame and yeast, which I had never suspected, and I was temporarily allergic to corn and coffee (don't worry--I don't drink coffee anyway). Why temporarily? Because gluten, other foods no body should be forced to digest, and the underlying autoimmune issues I have all teamed up to damage the linings of my gut and cause temporary sensitivities that could very well be eliminated once my gut was repaired. My body was reacting like I was allergic to so many things, when a food allergy was not the cause. Damage, often called Leaky Gut Syndrome, was.

Now, I can't explain to you how all that works, or the scientific explanations for all of this, but the plain English version is that not all food allergies are actually allergies. Often they are your damaged gut's way of telling you it needs repaired. Similarly, a damaged gut can lead to other allergies too, like seasonal ones--which can also be greatly helped if not eliminated by the same gut repair.

My point in sharing all of this is this: You don't have to have a chronic illness or autoimmune issues like me for this to be the cause of your food/stomach problems. If there's a food you used to be able to eat and now it seems to give you trouble, there is a good chance you're not actually allergic to it. Your gut may very well be damaged and can't handle it. So don't just cut out the food and think you can never eat it again--a thorough allergy test and a round of a repair diet could be your answer and solution.

So if a food is giving you trouble, or you've started having stomach issues and can't figure out a cause, please don't just ignore it as a fluke or an unavoidable allergy. Correct the issue before it gets worse, and reclaim your health before it gets farther out of reach.

{Linking up with Little Friday, Wellness Wednesday, Anything Goes Linky, Treat Yoself Thursday, Link Love}