Unstable Immune System? -Vent Alert-

[MsMissy]

I was wondering if anyone else out there has what my Doc refers to as an "unstable immune system"? I develop new alleries all the time, it used to be once every few years, but when Celiac first stared to set in about 5 years ago (it took me that long and a new doctor to get a diagnosis...scary) I started developing new sensitivities left and right. my list of food issues alone is up to nearly a dozen and im only 30! If this keeps up im going to starve to death at some point. (im well on my way, ive lost over 75lbs since last March.)

my food no no list is as follows:

Sheep/ Lamb (huge no no no...i cant even put the meat in my moth without getting hives on my lips and my tongue swelling.)

Nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, goji berries, peppers, wolf berries, tobacco, tomallaios- tree tomatoes, etc)

Soy

Pine Nuts

all melons and cucumbers (i actually got sick till i spit up blood!)

Wheat, rye, and all the gluten stuff of course

Yeast (my face swells)

Blue Cheese, Xanthian Gum, non-animal rennet and anything else made from Mold

Eggs (they give me chest pain)

Peanuts (severe nausea...even from just the smell, but thankfully not anaphalaxctic....yet)

i have had some issues with other red meat, but only to grain feed beef.. so im guessing its the grain they eat causing it.

Milk im ok with if i stick to Highland, for some reason the off brands give me really bad indigestion, im guessing the reason is the same as above.

Is anyone else out there having to deal with something like this???

my big question is...what do i eat now?

and what food will go on the no-no list next?

and when will that food decide to turn on me?

(will it be totally out of the blue, like melons this summer? and the Yeast this fall?)

currently the rest of my household is eating "normally" minus the nightshades, my girls are allergic to them too.

Im washing my hands and my dishes like mad but sometimes that still dosent make me feel "safe" i feel like im playing Russian roulette with my food...every meal, every day.

My anxiety level is though the roof!!!

(and the hubby wonders why i have no libido anymore...sorry John, it starved to death!)

[mushroom]

Lots of us discover additional intolerances after we eliminate gluten - it seems that gluten overrides the response to the others. And some of us continue to develop additional ones, which gets to be a real PITA. I'm right with you on the nightshades, soy, peanuts. Fortunately, I discovered two things: 1. all my intolerant foods had a high lectin content. 2. My gut was still leakiing and allowing molecules that were too large to leak through the intestinal lining into the blood stream, where my autoimmune system identified them as non-self and set off an inflammatory attack on my body. If this food was a lectin I had a worse response and then even the smallest trace, just like a crumb of gluten, would set me off. Once I identified all my trigger lectins and eliminated them, I have had a pretty stable immune system for the last 19 months, i.e., no more intolerances have developed and I have been very healthy, except when I don't keep careful track of my electrolytes which got me into a spot of bother last summer. I have been taking a very strong probiotic VSL#3, and other supplements, and I still take digestive enzymes because my pancreas isn't doing a very good job at producing them. But I have even found that some things my husband has cooked for me have contained small amounts of corn and of soy, and I have not reacted, so that is a positive sign that maybe this process can be put into reverse and that instead of adding new intolerances we can start getting rid of old ones. But I think making sure we don't have leaky gut syndrome is the first step in not developing new intolerances.

[julandjo]

I have no advice for you; I just wanted to say that I'm in the exact same boat. Like you, I've been happy to lose weight and for the first time in my life I'm at a very healthy weight. But new intolerances keep cropping up. At this point I'm down to 7 safe foods and weight is rapidly dropping off of me. I'm quite nervous about it. My doctor is too so I'm having another endoscopy this week... we'll see. Hang in there - you're not alone!

[jenngolightly]

Is anyone else out there having to deal with something like this???

my big question is...what do i eat now?

and what food will go on the no-no list next?

and when will that food decide to turn on me?

(will it be totally out of the blue, like melons this summer? and the Yeast this fall?)

currently the rest of my household is eating "normally" minus the nightshades, my girls are allergic to them too.

Im washing my hands and my dishes like mad but sometimes that still dosent make me feel "safe" i feel like im playing Russian roulette with my food...every meal, every day.

My anxiety level is though the roof!!!

(and the hubby wonders why i have no libido anymore...sorry John, it starved to death!)

Sure! I know how you feel. You'll soon learn to eat things that you didn't know existed before. That's where I am now. It's kind of a game for me after 9 months of this ultra-restrictive diet I've started. I can't eat sugar, dairy, corn, soy, any grains, gluten (of course), starchy veggies, and I'm allergic to nuts. I think that's it... I'm also allergic to strawberries, some hard cheeses, pineapples... Whatever...

But I've run into some interesting things that I never tried - and I'm 40 yo. I've always been a really picky eater and I never liked meat, squash, mushy foods. So it's been a challenge. New foods include fishes, lamb, homemade yogurt that I can turn into just about any sauce that I need, pork, squash, tomato, all lettuce, fennel, interesting spices, pure butter, apple cider, blueberries, etc. I've learned about a lot of recipe websites that have ingredients I can eat, and I've learned to substitute foods that I can't eat, with those I can eat.

It's really, really, really hard in the beginning and I cried a lot. But there are thousands of foods that you've never tasted and you're sure to run into some you like.

[T.H.]

I just saw an article about something like this the other day - the theory was the leaky gut was making it so that you continually develop more and more food allergies. Every time you start eating more of a food, it gets through your 'leaky gut' more, enters your blood stream, and you start reacting to that, too.

I don't know much about it - just read it for interest but haven't looked at it further. Here's a link an article on it, though, in case it helps. :-)

Open Original Shared Link

[MsMissy]

I just saw an article about something like this the other day - the theory was the leaky gut was making it so that you continually develop more and more food allergies. Every time you start eating more of a food, it gets through your 'leaky gut' more, enters your blood stream, and you start reacting to that, too.

I don't know much about it - just read it for interest but haven't looked at it further. Here's a link an article on it, though, in case it helps. :-)

Open Original Shared Link

Thanx, its a direction i haven't really explored before. ill mention it to my doc next time i see her.

[mushroom]

Thanx, its a direction i haven't really explored before. ill mention it to my doc next time i see her.

I agree with Shauna that healing the leaky gut is the first priority, because until it stops leaking more and more foods can cross into the bloodstream and create further intolerances. Anything you eat a lot of has a greater chance of becoming an intolerance until your gut stops leaking. Most of us take probiotics, some of us take L-glutamine, to heal our leaky guts. And we all need to get blood testing to find our nutritional deficiencies from malabsorption and supplement those things we are low in so that we can heal quicker.

[T.H.]

It just occurred to me: how much help are you getting in avoiding these foods that are getting you? Without aid in finding all the potential hidden sources of these foods, I think it might be pretty easy to be getting small amounts from contamination.

The yeast is what got me thinking. I just had a talk with a friend who has yeast issues. She's had them for over 20 years now , so she had to find out on her own a lot of this stuff, and she's collected a lot of info. She gets yeast infections of the skin and blood when she gets yeast, and her skin literally cracks open.

The things she had to look out for just amazed me. Like all vinegars - which I should have thought of, because I know yeast is added, but I'd never think about it. But she also had trouble with food from certain areas of the world, because different places have higher natural yeast concentration! I guess California produce, for example, is typically higher in natural yeast, to the point that it can bother some yeast-sensitive folks.

If you were not given a good source of information on hidden places these problem foods could be, perhaps some blogging allergy-sufferers or other informational sources would be of use in completely eliminating your bad foods.