Is It An Allergy Or Intolerance?

[lizard00]

This is for all of you who have egg, dairy, and or wheat/gluten allergies:

I know for sure that I have an egg white allergy and now am wondering if I have a casein allergy? I noticed that I can tolerate VERY small amts of dairy, but a small cup of yogurt will make my stomach feel the same way as when I eat eggs... Could I have developed another allergy to casein?

Another quandry: Eating gluten doesn't make me feel the same. I got headaches, fatigue, and looking back had a few other symptoms of Celiac too. Although the symptoms of allergy or sensitivity can be similar... The chances of me getting a Dx at this point is slim to none, as I have been gluten-free for a little over 2 months. My headaches went away, and I started taking B vit, magnesium and a regular multivitamin.

I really tried to load up the day before my blood test and had no reaction. I had bread, whole grain chips and regular beer. I am trying to determine if I need to see an allergist to rule in/out an allergy, or if I just caught this before any serious damage was done and now I'd have to eat gluten for a few days to get a reaction. Either way, I feel better than I have in a year, and I am not prepared to backslide. The difference in reactions make me sway away from a gluten allergy...

Any thoughts from any of your brilliant minds????

[dbmamaz]

First of all, I've posted twice here in the past few days and had no responses, so I"m starting to think this forum isnt really a good place to post questions - the only active posts seem to be the lyme disease posts.

Second of all, I seem to have TONS of food issues, and not really any DX yet. I did a mail-order sensitivity test from a company who, if you spell out their name in this forum (al and then cat) it gets changed in to something like bad advertising, i dont remember. the test has a lot of people who swear by it, but it is known to have false positives. I showed sensitive to gluten, casien, yeast, plus about 50 foods. However, some foods I know i've had reactions to (tropical fruits, shellfish, and cashews) didnt show up on it. I've made an apt for regular allergy testing to look for those.

I havent gotten my celiac panel results yet, but i had been off gluten for 6 weeks when it was taken, so i dont have high hopes. I also dont trust doctors to read the test, so i'll ask for a hard copy, not just a 'you're fine' phone call.

Finally, I did have stomach reactions, but i also lost my headaches and fatigue when I went off gluten, so i also will stay off it for now.

My bigger concern is staying off of rice at the same time, and trying not to overdo the corn for fear i'll become sensitive to that too. Once my system seems healed (sounds hard to expect right now) i'll start trying to reintroduce foods back in, but its pointless until i can get rid off all intestinal stress and bad spacey headache days (like today)

OH, also remember there are different body reactions which are dx'd different ways (if at all) by dr's - a regular allergist tests for IgE reactions, I think gluten is an IgG reaction, and the al ... .cat tes I took tests for IgG reactions. and only the IgE reaction is supposed to be called an allergy. Supposedly the IgG reactions should take more than 3 hours to show up, but I'm not sure i believe that. I'm not sure i got that all right, either!

[lizard00]

Thanks for your reply. Sorry to hear no one answered... sometimes we may just not know. I've not had that experience here, I've found everyone to be most helpful.

I'm trying to eat mostly meats, fruits and veggies. Rice has been the one thing that doesn't bother me. But it's not one of my favorite foods, so I'm pretty good at moderation. I've also started eating quinoa, which is pretty easy on your system too. Nice to have a few different choices.

I did an elimination diet in Nov, and realized that gluten was bothering me. But I continued to have some stomach issues... nothing that would cause a big reaction in my digestion, but rather my stomach would feel yuck. The same as when I eat eggs. I've been dairy lite and experimenting recently, and am almost sure it's casein. I'm just not sure if I'm allergic to gluten since the rxn is different or if it's celiac.

I've seen the A.L.C.A.T. tests online, but they are prett pricey. Especially when there is a super allergist down the road from me. But I'm not sure any tests are truly accurate, we can only hope for the best.

[hathor]

I'm intolerant to several things. My reactions to them vary. Also, my responses have grown over time. I used to be able to eat eggs by themselves. Then I could only have small amounts. Now the tiniest bit bothers me. The same thing has happened with dairy.

I'm not quite sure what you are asking. Could you have a casein intolerance and yet be able to have a little bit and not notice? Certainly. But it isn't a good idea to have it under the circumstances. You are damaging your body, even if you don't notice any symptoms at the time.

Enterolab and I'm sure some other places can test for casein. Or you can go casein-free for a period of time and then do a challenge. Take a lactaid pill beforehand, so you can tell if the problem is casein or lactose.

[lizard00]

My question is this:

An allergy is different from an intolerance. Some research suggests that if you are not severely allergic to something, you should rotate it every 4 or 5 days. An intolerance, however, you should stay away from. For a while I thought I was allergic to wheat or gluten, now I am truly wondering if I was in the beginnings of celiac, because, as I said, the reactions are different. After a month of gluten-free, when I purposely glutened myself for the test, I had no reaction. Could it be that I had already begun to heal and that's why I didn't have a reaction?

This has been tough for me, because I am constantly questioning myself, since I may never truly have a dx.

And do all of you who are allergic to these things get the same reaction as if you were glutened?

[CCM]

I have been going through something similar to your case. Fifteen years ago, when I first started having reactions to foods, I was in the midst of recovering from a chemical exposure that occurred on campus at a very well known east coast college. It seemed that my body started to reject whatever was in my system at the time the chemicals were, the typical graduate school diet consisting of coffee, eggs, wheat, soy, brewer's yeast. When I tested positive to all the above foods as a food allergy, I brought up the idea of celiac to my doctor. Because I was not having intestinal issues (typical nasal allergy stuff and other physical and neurological reactions), the doctor ruled out celiac (this was also the time that the disease was considered pretty rare).

I cut out foods that bothered me the most along with a host of other products to which I was now chemically sensitive. I never completely cut out the offensive foods however, just moderated how much I was willing to tolerate.

Everything seems to have changed after my pregnancy however. The typical nasal allergy stuff does not happen anymore when I eat wheat. Instead, all the other reactions present themselves more (I won't get into it all here) but still no intestinal, except gas and bloating. I went for a new round of tests in the past few months, AND, while my blood test and biopsy were negative for celiac, all my food allergy tests came back negative too. So I consider myself gluten (and dairy?) intolerant by way of an elimination diet challenge.

I can't give you all the medical lingo as to why, but having been in both places, I personally feel that there is distinct difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance. Five or ten years ago, I was willing to eat a great pasta dinner and pay the price later on. After going through what I have in the past two years, I had to conclude that I was no longer willing to take those chances and I have to wonder whether my continued ingestion of food allergens really took me further along a path toward food intolerance.

[lizard00]

So possibly one could lead to another? It's definitely something to consider.

For me, my life seems to have gone south after my pregnancy. I could eat pretty much anything and I felt good most of the time. He is almost 3 now, and it seems that over the past year or so was when the headaches started and I started noticing that I was feeling run down and sickly a lot. People like to say "it's because you have a child", but this was like total fatigue, if my life depended upon me taking another step I would die.

When I cut gluten, my life started to get better. And now I feel like I used to, it's great. That's kind of scary though... so if i continue to eat something I'm allergic to, it could become an intolerance, which, I guess is worse because you are causing damage...hmmm

[CCM]

Please, please don't accept my personal experience as the way it is going to go for you. It is just what I seem to have experienced and I really have no idea whether anyone else has had it go this way. I just read that physical traumas do act as some kind of trigger. And with each pregnancy I got worse. I am now going through these tests because I did not have enough energy to keep up with my son. He is lactose intolerant and his major problems with that started within one month of introducing him to wheat as a baby (I did not even make the connection regarding that until a few months ago, he is almost seven). And my second pregnancy ended in miscarriage at 10 weeks and I had incredibly painful stomach/intestinal things going on while pregnant that I just chalked up to a bad case of morning sickness.

I now know that gluten intolerance may have played a role there. I was very conscious of nutrition during the pregnancy but not thinking about food allergies etc. I would like to have more kids but really need to get this issue under control first, which is why I am doing much to educate myself on the differences between allergy/intolerance/celiac disease.

Please post if you find anything more out regarding this area. Would love to learn more. And good luck!

[lizard00]

I really appreciate you taking the time to tell me your experience. I know everyone is different, and what might affect one may no affect another. But that's why I posted here, for some ideas and to see what other people have experienced. So, this has definitely helped. Right now I am waiting for the results from my CT scan and then I will probably decide from there to whether or not to go to an allergist. There are so many people who have rxns to things and then test negative to an intolerance or allergy, so I'm not in such a hurry to go.

I definitely think for me pregnancy was a trigger for something. Because my body has definitely changed, which I expected. But, not like this. Oh well, for now I guess I must wait and see and go from there.

If I find any additional info, I will be sure to pass it on to you.

I hope you get everything straight with you, too!!!!

[CCM]

Keep working on it! If you think a toddler is tiring, just wait until the "why?" phase starts and all the questions, and school and homework! It has just been exhausting over the past year. To hear myself say, "Honey, why don't you watch TV for a little bit; Mommy needs to take a nap." That was the turning point where I knew something was just very wrong with me.

[lizard00]

I COMPLETELY understand. For me, it was when I came home from work at 2:30 and had to put him in his crib because I couldn't keep my eyes open and the thought of having to keep up with him made me sick...

That is NOT normal, but some people you just cannot convince!