Allergies

Food and Environmental Allergy

Are you suffering from allergy?  I am seeing more allergy patients than ever before.  Why is this?  Allergy occurs when your immune system reacts to foods or the environment.

Whether it’s food or environmental in origin, you’re probably not feeling great!

You may have been avoiding foods you used to love, or not going to your friend’s house because of her cat, or avoiding going on a picnic in Spring with your friends due to fear of an allergic attack! This may help in the short term, but getting to the bottom of your allergy and dealing with it will be more beneficial in the long term.

Food and environmental reactions, allergies, intolerances or sensitivities, can range from very obvious and immediate, to vague and non-specific.

They can occur at any age, triggering many different symptoms and contributing to a variety of disorders including but not limited to:

Types of Allergy

• An allergy will show up on a blood test with an immune response involving antibody production. Immediate reactions to Foods (IgE), occurs within 3 hours after eating. They are usually caused by high IgE antibody blood levels that produce an immediate allergic response. This allergic reaction may appear as a rash after eating foods like strawberries or nuts. An anaphylactic reaction is an extreme IgE response.
• Delayed Reactions to Foods (IgG) are much more difficult to notice since they can occur hours or days after consumption of an offending food. These are far more common. In some cases, you may eat a food for several days before developing a reaction to it, so you may not realize the link between the food and your symptoms. Often, the offending foods are hard to avoid and frequently eaten, such as dairy, eggs and wheat.
• Production of IgA antibodies are exacerbated when sensitivity to specific foods inflame the mucous membranes of the gastrointestinal tract. This inflammation will lead to gastrointestinal symptoms of abdominal pain, bloating, flatulence, IBS to IBD.
• Food sensitivities and intolerances are more common than food allergies and may not be immune-mediated. These commonly do not show up on a traditional allergy test and are usually a delayed and milder reaction.

You may be sensitive or intolerant to a food for a few reasons.

These include:

• Not having the right enzymes you need to digest a certain foods.
• Problems with your digestive system such as leaky gut or dysbiosis.
• Poor liver function and problems with detoxification or elimination.
• Reactions to specific food groups, food chemicals, additives or preservatives like sulphites, MSG, or artificial colours.
• Sensitivity to the sugars naturally found in certain foods like onions, broccoli, or lentils.

What Can I Do?

In the short term I can give you symptomatic relief with the support of herbs and nutritional support.  I have some great natural antihistamine, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory support for symptomatic relief without the unwanted side effects of pharmaceutical medications.  There will need to be some dietary investigations and restrictions short term.  However highly restrictive diets that eliminate entire food groups are generally not recommended long term, due to the potential risk of nutritional deficiencies, especially in children.

***If you have an anaphylactic reaction to foods such as a nut allergy, lifelong avoidance is still the current recommendation.

Why is your immune system responding and other’s aren’t?

This can be frustrating and we will work with you to regulate your immune system and reduce this over-reactivity, so that we can decrease the frequency and/or intensity of your allergic response. Long-term we will focus on correcting any underlying issues with your immune response and digestive system, to increase your tolerance to enable you to gradually re-introduce foods into your diet and get your life back to normal.

Naturopathy is very effective in the treatment of allergy and allergic disorders.