Corn Is Bringing My Family To Its Knees

[srall]

I apologize for this not being a gluten post. My daughter is 7 and she is gluten/soy/dairy AND corn free. The corn is the most severe of her intolerances and it's one step beyond because she's also VERY allergic. Corn is in every dang thing. I'm scrambling for children's fever reducer, band aids (she had a horrible reaction to a band aid. The cut healed faster than the patch where the band aid was), starches in foods (I've been using egg whites), toothpaste, etc.

When I became gluten free I searched around and found this wonderful forum which has been so helpful and educational. Now I'm looking for a similar resource for corn allergies and intolerances. I can't seem to find one with the same ease I found this board.

I'm really scared because her allergic reactions are getting more and more severe and I'm afraid of being someplace and her going into anaphylactic shock. Today she licked an envelope at school and now is having stomach pains. (I know that could be gluten as well)

This corn is making avoiding gluten seem like a cake walk. Any advice would be hugely appreciated.

[Dixiebell]

I found this on facebook Open Original Shared Link maybe it will help.

[srall]

Dixiebell, that site is very helpful. It tells me a lot of ingredients to avoid, which I'm getting much better at. Now my biggest problem is finding substitutes. Not necessarily with food as I prepare all of that, but more with products such as toiletries. I will bookmark that page for sure.

[Takala]

What a bummer.

This site may have some recipes: Open Original Shared Link

this may have some info that is helpful: Open Original Shared Link

[srall]

What a bummer.

This site may have some recipes: Open Original Shared Link

this may have some info that is helpful: Open Original Shared Link

I did find that site (corn allergens) today while doing my research. It's a really good one but now I'm completely overwhelmed. It's just in everything. And I realized the vitamins I've been giving her to help her recover from massive vitamin deficiencies may or may not have corn.

I think this forum is going to be what I'm looking for. I didn't really notice it until my post was moved here. The thing I've found most helpful is the stories from real people who are dealing with this, as opposed to doctors. Hate to say it, but I just am losing my faith. Thanks again for the responses.

[captaincrab55]

This may help...

Open Original Shared Link

[T.H.]

It's just in everything. And I realized the vitamins I've been giving her to help her recover from massive vitamin deficiencies may or may not have corn. The thing I've found most helpful is the stories from real people who are dealing with this, as opposed to doctors. Hate to say it, but I just am losing my faith. Thanks again for the responses.

So, so sorry you're having such trouble. It is very overwhelming, goodness, yes. IMHO, if your little one is very sensitive, the easiest way to stay safe is to basically change the way you approach your food. We had to drop corn as well, not for allergies but other reactions from cc, but...the only way to avoid all the 'bad' in our food supply has involved completely rethinking how we live our lives, food-wise.

We have an oil we use, a salt we use, a couple whole grains from safe farms, and that's about it in the processed department. Everything else we are now having to make ourselves, because we were just getting sick too often otherwise. I'm still working on the products OTHER than food, which I know you have to check out too, but for food at least, I can give some examples of what we do.

We just made home-made apple cider vinegar the old-fashioned way, without sugar or yeast added. We are growing our own herbs and spices now. We have put in a garden to try and get some of the more difficult foods to find without coatings or sprays used on them. We can only use our own compost, no fertilizers, special soils, nada.

You would not believe how much less stressful it is to eat something that we grow ourselves - we know there's not going to be any reaction. It's such a relief, you know?

If we don't have it ourselves (which is most stuff, now, since we only started this within the last few months), We go to the farmer's market and question the farmer's about their mulches (do they have our bad grains in them?), fertilizers and pesticides (what are their ingredients derived from?), if they use sprays to retard rot or to promote ripening (some of these have corn, too). We find out about our meats from the ranches and farmers, find out what they are fed (cc hazards), where these animals have access to among the crops(cc hazard for the veggies on the ground), what the meat is washed with (some wash with citric acid, which some extremely sensitive corn allergic folks can react to). Poultry skin can be contaminated during the defeathering process, if they are fed corn.

I have even met one gal who is so sensitive to corn that if she eats eggs from chickens who are fed corn in their feed, she gets mildly ill until she stops.

It's...a little like thinking of ourselves as being from little house on the prairie, LOL. But with modern tools. :-) We are learning to can things, preserve things, ferment things - considering that I was a fast food eating machine before this started, it's been a real ride.

At first, I really thought we wouldn't have to be this careful, but one of the big problems has been the number of things that can be used in our food supply that don't have to be mentioned on the label. A good example is distilled vinegar. On the label it might say the grain used plus water. But they add yeast after distillation. And many yeasts add starch, usually cornstarch, to the yeast just before drying. So you end up with corn added to the vinegar and never even on the label.

I believe it's because it's considered part of the processing, not an ingredient. Cornmeal is now sometimes used as a weed retardant on organic farms. Corn is also used in packaging and doesn't have to be labeled there, either.

It's been much easier to avoid it when we're buying our produce from farmers that we've vetted. Even then, we still sometimes have problems, but SO much less this way. I know some people don't do it this way. I've read blogs and they have slowly gone through foods and found what is safe.

I guess I just got so sick of BEING sick all the time that the work I'm doing now felt like a better way of doing things than trying and failing over and over with processed foods, you know?

I know what you mean about losing faith, too. Most of my doctors are not well versed in the food industry or products, so they have NO idea what we can get sick from. We found folks in the trenches, who HAVE to learn about this, were the best resource for us, too.

[Evangeline]

I am also corn intolerant or sensitive. I never knew it until I removed it entirely from my diet for 4 months and then reintroduced it. When I began eating it again, I have SEVERE HEADACHES and DEPRESSION.

I said the same thing to my Celiac family: Avoiding corn is 100 times harder than avoiding gluten!!!! It is in EVERYTHING!! And its not labeled! And sometimes the companies make mistakes!

There is only one way to handle my situation: Go natural. Make everything from scratch. I no longer use tooth paste and after doing some research, I just read that toothpaste really does very little, anyway. Dry brushing works VERY well. Also, once a week use a little baking soda (Okay, I haven't checked if baking soda is corn-free --- probably not! LOL. Then I'd use salt.) Also consider getting a WaterPik for $60 which cleans between the teeth and the gum line with water like a powerful hose. It feels good, it stopped my gums from bleeding and the dentist said my oral hygiene is excellent.

Another idea: I bought a Vita-Mix blender. I make cream sauces from cashews, pestos from almonds, and milk from iron-rich sunflower seeds and honey. The blender arrives with a cookbook for everything 100% natural (THERE ARE NO GRAINS IN THE COOKBOOK!). They have recipes on how to make peanut butter, ice cream, etc. The cookbook is grain-free, dairy-free, legume-free, corn-free and soy-free. There website is here: Open Original Shared Link

Best of all, the Vita-Mix blender grinds nuts or grains into flour in 10 seconds. It has made the transition process very easy .

[GFinDC]

I was going to say the same thing, brush the teeth with baking soda. She could also use plain old salt.

You can thicken soups and gravies with pysilluim husks, or okra, flax seed meal, or any other gluten-free grain flour. Sweet potatoes boiled and mushed make a nice soup thickener. Tasty too.

You might want to check out possible cross reactions too.

Open Original Shared Link

[srall]

Holy cow you guys. How can I thank you? This will be short because I'm on vacation and I'm typing this on my iPhone. This is exactly what I was looking for. I will just check this forum as well as coping and parents of. I got s vitamix for my birthday last month and i am loving it. We do a lot of green drinks. I'll have to expand my repertoire Thank you thank you. It's so nice to be among people who get it.

[Bluehydrangea]

I thought going gluten free was bad. I just recently found out I also have egg, corn and peanut allergies. I couldn't understand why when I went gluten free I still had symptoms and now I know. It's from other foods. Corn is by far the worst because it's in everything we eat. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with this. I'm trying but I keep missing the corn in what I'm eating and end up with my face broken out in hives, my scalp with blister, etc. And it's getting worse with every passing week.

Today I was at the doctor and I started crying. I'm 57 years old and not sure why this is happening to me now. I work and don't have time to spend hours in the grocery store reading all the labels(which are hard to see anyway because the print is so small), grow my own food, cook everything at home, etc. I know it's the only way to be safe though. She told me our lives revolve around food and she's right. So finding out you can't eat hardly anything is devastating.

What I hate about this the most is that CORN does not have to be identified on food labels like gluten, eggs, peanuts, soy, etc. At least with those it's far easier to identify quickly what you can't eat. With corn you have no idea. e.g. the discussion about xanthum gum. Who can figure all of this out??

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. I can't imagine how a child deals with this and how hard being that child's mother must be. Maybe we can all try to help each other with our corn allergies.

[RebeccaLynn]

I am wondering if I am sensitive to corn as well. I did an elimination diet, and didn't feel much better throughout the whole experience. Try this website: Open Original Shared Link This is an EXCELLENT resource for whole-food living, avoiding allergens in food, and I honestly can NOT live without their cookbook which is free of gluten, dairy and allergen-free recipes - and you use the Vitamix like crazy! Hope things get better for you & your daughter.

[annegirl]

Have you had any trouble with reacting to something that says it's corn free? I had some Ruffles Natural chips with sea salt and got so sick I almost ended up in the ER last night. I have never had such excruciating abdominal pain and bloating.

I looked up the chips on this list ( Open Original Shared Link ) and it says that reactions have been noted, with possible cross contamination.

I looked online at the chips ingredients and it says right on Frito Lays page that they are corn free. It was my exact corn reaction, but I want to make sure that I'm not reacting to something else and just not realizing it. I never ever want to repeat that night again.

I did have a slight reaction to cayenne pepper earlier in the evening, but that was just an itchy nose because I put way too much in my chicken. I did not feel sick at all until about 3-5 minutes after eating the chips which was several hours after eating anything else.

Has anyone had trouble with this? This is so frustrating. If I can't even count on things that are supposed to be safe what am I to do? I am leaving on Monday for a 2 week business trip and it really has me tied up in knots not being able to cook my own food.

[Evangeline]

Have any of you heard of Dr. James Osmonde? He believes that Celiacs many Celiacs are not only intolerant to the gliadins in wheat, barley and rye, but the gluten in corn and other grains as well.

He is the founder of the Gluten Free Society and cites studies that have found that corn affect the intestines of Celiacs exactly the way the gliadins in wheat, barley and rye do.

Open Original Shared Link

Google "Dr. Osmand Celiac" and you will a lot of information.