Do you have symptoms that just don’t seem to go away?
I’m not only talking about just digestive symptoms but also random aches, pains, rashes…?
One of the hardest things to know is whether these kinds of ‘annoying but not life-threatening’ problems are due to food intolerance.
That’s because symptoms of food intolerance don’t just occur immediately but can also be delayed, ongoing, and not even resemble a digestive symptom at all.
In this post I go over a few of the common symptoms, and how to enter detective mode and start figuring out your own personal dietary guidelines.
Number 1: It’s important to know the difference between allergy and intolerance.
An allergy involves an immune system response – anaphylaxis or immediate allergic reactions that can be very serious and even life-threatening.
If you have definite allergies, you need to steer clear of any traces of foods you are allergic to, and speak with your doctor or pharmacist about emergency medication, if needed.
But what about those annoying symptoms that you just can’t seem to link to anything specific?
Those symptoms are possible food intolerances.
Simply put an intolerance means that you don’t tolerate or handle a specific food very well and it causes a variety of symptoms – anywhere in the body.
Symptoms can take hours or even days to show themselves. And symptoms can be turn up just about anywhere in the body. This is what makes them so hard to pin down and be certain about!
Number 2: Recognise the symptoms.
Food intolerances that have immediate and painful gastrointestinal symptoms, such as lactose intolerance or celiac disease can cause stomach pain, gas, bloating, and/or diarrhoea, and symptoms can begin immediately after eating lactose or gluten.
On the other hand, other more insidious symptoms may not be linked to foods in an obvious way. These include:
- Chronic muscle or joint pain
- Sweating, or increased heart rate or blood pressure
- Headaches or migraines
- Exhaustion after a good night’s sleep
- Autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s or rheumatoid arthritis
- Rashes or eczema
- Inability to concentrate or feeling like your brain is “foggy”
- Shortness of breath
When your body has trouble digesting something, the result is inflammation in the gut which can affect the whole body and show up as any of the symptoms listed above.
Number 3: How to figure out these intolerances.
The main thing you can do is to figure out which foods or drinks you may be reacting to is to stop ingesting the most likely culprits. This means stripping your diet back to a basic paleo diet for 30 days and tracking your symptoms.
So meat, fish, eggs, veg, fruit, nuts, seeds, olive and coconut oil. Skip grains, dairy, sugar, alcohol, seed oils, processed foods and caffeine for the whole month.
PRO TIP: Regardless of where you’re at in your health journey, you’re liking to feel a whole lot better after a couple of weeks on this diet. Whilst the first week might be really hard – persevere and you’ll see the benefits!
However, if you suffer from serious symptoms or are starting off in a highly inflamed state, for example with a diagnosed auto-immune disease, it’s best to trim down the diet even further to eliminate all possible inflammatory triggers like eggs, nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, capsicum, chilli…), nuts and seeds.
You may also find it takes longer than the 30 days (like 60+ days) to see significant improvement, although you should see some promising signs fairly quickly.
If your symptoms do improve, then you need to decide whether you want to slowly introduce them back into your diet or continue a little longer.
I usually recommend starting with something that you really love and would have back in your diet immediately if you could.
You need to introduce individual foods one at a time and be on the look out to see if symptoms return. More than one offender at once just confuses the whole whodunnit situation and you’re more likely to react full stop.
Of course this information is for interest only and not intended as a medical recommendation – you should see your health care provider if you are concerned.
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Kelly Moriarty is an online health & nutrition coach and founder of The Green Body Plan.
After 5 years as a veterinarian Kelly was unhealthy, stressed out and generally dissatisfied.
She now helps professional women make the same changes she did to beat burn out, lose weight, recover their energy and take back control of their health naturally.
kellyannmoriarty.com 