Soy Intollerance

[dionnek]

I have been feeling "off" lately - very dizzy and constant headaches along with a horrible 5 hours straight of V and D a few nights ago. I am wondering if I could have a soy intollerance/allergy. The night I was sick, I had eaten a bunch of gluten free food at a party, most of which was probably made with soy, and about half a year ago I had an "episode" where I was dizzy/nauseaus/couldn't breath/lost feeling in my fingers/arms and legs - basically thought I was having a stroke - but this also occurred after a weekend of pigging out on gluten free goodies (I was on vacation in Seattle where they have much more gluten free bakeries)

Anyway, I was wondering if dizzyness/headaches/vomitting, etc. could be symptoms of a soy intollerance. I am going to try to give up soy for a while, but just wanted to see if anyone else had similar symptoms.

[spunky]

I ended up giving up soy after about a year gluten free...started having similar symptoms as gluten, only with me they were milder than my gluten symptoms had been...for a while I thought I kept getting gluten somewhere along the way...but cutting out the soy seemed to be the answer.

The same set of sypmtoms, worse than soy, but still milder than gluten, happens when I eat eggs...lots of the gluten-free baked goods do have eggs too...so, there's another possibility, although it could be anything...a bug, too much msg, too much dairy, or the above things. I can usually tell the difference by now if it's a food-induced thing or a bug or something.

You might wanna just check your gluten-free goodies for other possible culprits. It's just hard to know what's going on, sometimes. I find that I can eat a couple of gluten-free cookies with egg listed in ingredients, and then no more for several days, and not have noticeable symtpoms from that. I'm good for one Kinnikinnik donut too...anymore and the eggs get me. I try to stick with gluten-free pretzels, breads, etc. that are also free of soy, eggs, or dairy. These might not be a problem for you, and I hope not, but I'm just bringing up possibilities for you to consider. Of course, it's also possible you may have inadvertently gotten a hold of some gluten, if this happened in a party-type situation in which gluten foods were also present.

[aeshlea]

I am soy intolerant, er have an allergy to it...whichever, I can't eat it. However I did eat it for a very long time (I was a vegetarian for a while and ate lots of tofu) and I can attest to the D. I have found that if I eat a good amount of soy I will have D, but if I just eat a minimal amount I get an instant headache. Sometimes its mild, but its obvious it is still there. I also will get a 'sour stomach' feeling when I eat small amount.

One way I found out for sure (other then being tested) that I have soy issues was when I hadn't eatten much one day and then my mom had my try this new stuff called 'soy milk' (this was a while ago before soy milk was popular) and right after I ate it I had a major reaction. For some reason soy in liquid form effects me much quicker then when its mixed in with other foods as an ingredient. Maybe if you went a day without eatting too much else and then just had some soy milk and see what happens you could know if you had a reaction more easily. Also, something that always effected me was tofu. I dont know if you have ever had it, its really not bad at all (like soft chicken) but I ALWAYS would have D that night or the next day when I had it..it took me a while to figure out what it was from though. Good luck!

[Juliebove]

My daughter has a soy allergy. She doesn't seem to react to soybean oil or soy lecithin, but then her reactions aren't always immediate or pronounced so we generally try to avoid them. Once I acccidently gave her crackers containing soy. I wasn't able to read the list of ingredients in English. They had so many ingredient lists in foreign languages and I thought I had read them, but apparently not. She was telling me what a good cracker it was when all of a sudden she doubled over in pain and had to run to the bathroom. The reaction was that quick. I was on the computer so I looked them up online and sure enough there was soy in them. Gah!

[dionnek]

Thanks everyone - it does sound like it could be a soy problem with me. I'm going to try not having any soy for a week or 2, and then have some soy milk and see what happens (I"ll do this at home of course!).