HOW TO DETECT SENSITIVITY TO FOOD AND DRINK

Skin and laboratory tests for allergy to foods are not always conclusive or reliable. They need to be considered in the context of a detailed history of symptoms. Exclusion dieting, followed by challenge testing – eating a food to see if you react – is the most reliable method of testing for both food allergy and all types of food intolerance.

One specific form of food intolerance, which reproduces the symptoms of allergy and responds to treatment with anti-histamines, is called ‘false food allergy’. It can be detected by modified laboratory tests for allergy. Certain foods are known to cause false food allergy (i.e. peanuts, beans, pulses, wheat, egg white, shellfish, pork, fish, chocolate, tomatoes and strawberries) and other foods are suspected of causing it (i.e. buckwheat, mango, mustard, papaya, raw pineapple, sunflower seeds). If you have classic allergic symptoms caused by any of these foods, respond to antihistamine treatment, but have negative results to tests for allergy, false food allergy may be the cause.

Food intolerance caused by specific chemicals found naturally in certain foods can only be confirmed by exclusion dieting. Some foods contain chemicals that have effects directly on the body, such as histamine, other vasoactive amines and caffeine. Histamine is found naturally in fermented foods, cheeses, well-ripened foods such as salamis and sausages, and fish of the mackerel family that has been kept too warm. Other vasoactive amines are found in cheeses, fermented and pickled foods, yeast extract, chocolate, bananas, avocados, wine and citrus fruits. Caffeine is found in tea, coffee, chocolate, cola drinks and some painkillers. For a full description of this kind of intolerance.

Exclusion dieting will also help identify known enzyme defects that can cause food intolerance and specific symptoms, or coeliac disease, a form of wheat and gluten intolerance. A specialist doctor will be able to identify such defects readily from your pattern of symptoms.

Hyperactivity in children has been linked to enzyme defects and food intolerance.

People with food sensitivity often exhibit some identifiable traits of character or behaviour. While not precisely symptoms, these are strong indicators of sensitivity.

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MULTIPLE SENSITIVITY: IF YOU WANT TO GO FURTHER

If you know that you react to many things and that basic avoidance has not helped very much, you will probably need specialist help and advice. If you need advice on medical treatments.

Skin and laboratory tests can help to identify what substances you are allergic to, although they will not help with chemical sensitivity or food intolerance. Which will also help you work out what might cause your problems in different areas of your life, and help identify patterns of symptoms.

If you want to take the process of elimination and avoidance much further, and clear your environment of the things that cause you to react, use the other sections of this Guide to help you with thorough avoidance. Choose either an area of life where you have the most pressing problems, or a type of allergen or substance that seems to be particularly troublesome. Only investigate one area or type of allergen at a time – you will get very confused results if you are eliminating many things at once and you do indeed have multiple sensitivity. You may find the process complicated in that your symptoms may not totally disappear when you remove only one cause from around you, but you should always notice some difference, and usually some improvement, when you avoid one thing, as long as it is something that causes you to react. If you notice no change or disturbance at all in your symptoms, then you are unlikely to be sensitive to the one thing you have chosen to avoid.

This phenomenon of ‘masking’, or the symptoms of multiple sensitivities hiding or blurring each other, is one of the most difficult things to untangle when you start avoiding things. Often, when you avoid and eliminate one allergen or substance, you find that another starts to bother you more intensely than before, as if its effects have been unmasked by the removal of the first substance.

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ALLERGY TO CLEANING PRODUCTS/CHEMICALS AT WORK OR SCHOOL: DISINFECTANTS

Most domestic disinfectants are based on quaternary ammonium compounds or on phenol (carbolic acid). They also contain fragrances, usually complex hydrocarbons. Disinfectants are unpleasant and troublesome chemicals. Do not use them unless you have a strong need – say, infection or an invalid in the home.

Very hot water, and plenty of it, is the best way to clean up after any baby messes and mishaps. Most kitchen surfaces are effectively disinfected by thorough washing and rinsing with hot water. A solution of Borax or sodium bicarbonate will serve as a mild disinfectant for most purposes, as will oxygen bleach.

Air conditioning systems are often regularly disinfected to protect against bacterial infections such as Legionnaire’s Disease. This may affect you at work in the days immediately after the disinfection, while the fumes are blown through the system. Ask the people responsible to give you warning so that you can be prepared, or out of the building.

If you need to use a strong disinfectant, The Allergy Shop make an anti-bacterial concentrate which some people tolerate well. Unscented Dettox (available from supermarkets) is also tolerated well by some people with chemical sensitivity. Try these with care.

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ALLERGY BABYCARE\HOW TO WEAN: IF YOUR BABY REACTS

If your baby has reacted to a food during the day of testing it, (first or second time around), do not repeat it. Try and get through the day without giving another new test food – it may not be easy to work out which food the baby is reacting to, and will confuse the results.

If your baby is first weaning and reacts to a number of foods that you try, keep trying different foods on a four-day rotation until you find four foods that suit. Try not to give foods more frequently than once every four days – a food-sensitive baby may start to react to foods that he or she tolerated well if they are eaten too frequently. Ask a doctor for advice as you go on, particularly if you start running out of foods to try and you have a very hungry baby shouting for food. Ask for specialist help if you need it – some health visitors and GPs are very experienced and helpful with highly sensitive babies.

If your baby appears to start to react to foods for unexplained reasons, one of the causes may be cross-reaction between related foods. If you have a very sensitive baby, read FOOD AND DRINK and CROSS-REACTION before planning a weaning programme.

If your baby is on an established diet and is only testing single foods at the first meal of the day, you may get confusing results if he or she is reacting to foods in the normal diet, eaten during the rest of the day. The only way to sort this out may be to go to a full rotation diet. Consult a specialist doctor and.

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ALLERGY TO MOULDS: WHAT TRIGGERS SPORE RELEASE?

So what situations trigger spore release in concentrations? Usually it is some change in their environment. Sudden warming in damp conditions can stimulate spore release in an indoor environment. Using a tumble dryer, ironing clothes, drying wet towels or hanging wet laundry near a strong heat source will stimulate spore production. Bringing damp logs or a plant in from the cold will also produce mould spores. Installing central heating in an old house can bring about sudden concentrations of spores where there were few problems before. A damp spot beneath a dripping radiator valve can induce high levels of mould as the heating comes on. Keeping rooms dry and keeping a steady average temperature can do much to avoid such problems.

Climatic conditions can also stimulate spore release. A warm, humid period of weather in summer will encourage mould production on foliage, crops and plants. If there is then a windy period, the spores can be dispersed and carried even long distances. Some moulds implicated in allergy – Cladosporium, Alternaria, Botrytis Cinerea, StemphylUum – produce spores more readily in a drying wind. They can produce explosive concentrations of spores on hot, dry days in summer.

One allergenic mould – Didymella Exitalis – is very sensitive to moisture levels in the atmosphere. Its sporulation is provoked by dew formation; between June and early September, spores are released at about midnight and reach their peak at 3 a.m. It is also provoked by thunderstorms and reaches a peak some hours after very heavy rainfall in storms.

Another moisture sensitive mould is Sporobolomyces which, like Didymella, reaches its peak on warm summer nights in humid weather. It is at its height usually at about 4 a.m. in late July and August.

Some moulds thrive better in coastal situations, others inland.

Penicil Hum, for instance, does well in coastal sites; Cladosporium, Alternaria and StemphyUium are more prevalent inland.

Warmth and climate changes can thus stimulate spore production in airborne moulds. Disturbing and stirring up the mould’s environment can also produce very high local concentrations in soilborne moulds. Some moulds, such as Mucor and Rhizopus, live in the soil and only become airborne (and thus able to provoke allergic reactions) when they are disturbed. Thus digging a garden, playing in a sandpit and ploughing a field can propel spores into the air.

Other activities, too, can expose high levels of spores. Raking leaves, mowing grass, turning a compost heap, picking fruit, sweeping a yard – all these will throw mould spores into the atmosphere in high concentrations.

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