Herbal Health

Even a tiny trace of a food to which you are sensitive can be enough to make you react. Avoid all processed foods if you want to be absolutely sure that you are leaving out any food totally. Remember oils, herbs and spices are foods as well – leave these off any food you are testing.

Are you consuming anything else that might contain the offending food, even if you are not actually eating it as a single food? Avoid home medicines (including homeopathic) and drugs, if at all possible -they may contain the food in tabletting, syrups or flavouring. You may have to stop using toothpaste, mouthwashes and other such products. Avoid licking stamps, envelopes or other gummed surfaces -these are often gummed with glues derived from wheat, corn or potato. Avoid taking vitamins and minerals unless it is essential and you know exactly what is in the formulation. Think of anything else you might lick or chew – chewing-gum, paper, anything at all?

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Some reactions to food are caused by false food allergy and by reactions to chemicals, such as histamine and tyramine, that occur naturally in food.

The main symptoms caused by the principal types of food intolerance are shown in Diagram 3. You may find you suffer from one or more of these symptoms. Symptoms can come and go, or you may only react to a food if you eat large amounts of it, or if you eat it regularly.

Another characteristic of the symptoms of food intolerance is that if you leave out a food that you eat regularly for a while, and then reintroduce it, you can experience different, often intense, symptoms. This is the result of a phenomenon known as ‘masking’. People who are intolerant of a food they eat regularly, even several times a day, often complain of constant, background symptoms, such as exhaustion, muscle aches, indigestion and headaches, that they have learned to live with. These symptoms disappear when they leave out the food causing the trouble. On reintroduction of the food, some people, not all, find they experience symptoms that are not the same as the background, masked symptoms they were used to, but which are quite clearly linked to the reintroduced food. These unmasked reactions can be very strong. Conversely, it is also common that, if people with food intolerance of this kind leave the offending food out of their diet for some time, they can then eat it again without problems. Masking is also common in people with multiple sensitivities

Withdrawal symptoms can result if you stop eating a food that you eat regularly, or the day after you eat a food that you only have every so often.

Hyperventilation is common in some people with food intolerance, and their stools are pale and smelly; the babies usually fail to grow. If the disease develops in adulthood, the symptoms are diarrhoea, gut pain, bloating, weakness and weight loss.

Hyperactivity in children has been linked to food intolerance and to chemical sensitivity.

People with food intolerance who have sorted out their diets often report that a number of symptoms other than the main ones clear up once they exclude their problem foods. These are not formally recognised as symptoms of food intolerance, but they are so commonly reported by people that they are taken seriously as indicators of food intolerance. These can include excessive weight swings (more than 0.5 kg/1 lb gain or loss per day); irritability and mood swings; body odour; flushing and excessive sweating; difficulty in controlling body temperature; feeling too cold or too hot; food cravings; excessive thirst; insomnia.

So-called ‘allergy shiners’, big black rings under the eyes, are often typical of the allergy or intolerance sufferer. These often disappear once problem foods are removed from the diet.

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Sensitivity to washing powders and liquids is very idiosyncratic; one product will affect one person, and not another. The ingredients which most often cause reactions are enzymes, chlorine bleaches, perfumes and a stabiliser ethylene-diamino-tetra acetate (EDTA). Other petrochemical-based chemicals in laundry agents also cause problems. Avoid biological powders, enzyme powders and combined conditioner and detergent products.

If you think you react to your washing powder or liquid, it may be that it is not being rinsed out adequately. If you live in a soft-water area, or if you use low temperature programmes a lot, detergent residues may not be rinsed out and can remain in the laundry when dry. Try running an extra rinse programme on every wash.

Doing hand-washing may expose you to too much of your detergent. You may be inhaling or touching enough to make you react, while using machine-washing and rinsed clothes may be fine. Avoid hand-washing if possible – use a wool or fine materials programme on a machine.

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Babies can be allergic from birth, or develop allergies later, to inhalants such as house dust mites, pollens, moulds, pets and other animals, or fibres, such as wool. If you want full information on any of these, go to the relevant sections of the Guide for detailed advice on full avoidance measures. Below you will find advice on precautionary measures to protect a potentially allergic baby.

Babies (and people generally) with allergies sometimes have a predisposition to develop further allergies. It can help to prevent this by taking general precautions to reduce the load of allergens on a young baby, particularly in the first two years of life.

Precautionary Measures

For bedding, using pure cotton blankets, which are washable at high temperatures, helps protect against house dust mites. Duvets are more difficult to dry and air, not usually washable at high temperatures, and are best avoided. Wool and feathers are more allergenic than cotton and best avoided.

Do not put a newborn baby on a sheepskin sleeping rug, to protect against allergy to wool. Allergy to cotton is rare but if your baby is allergic to cotton.

Wash all bedding regularly, and keep it aired and dry to keep house dust mites and moulds under control. Turning back blankets to air and placing a hot water bottle in a cot a few hours before bedtime helps to keep bedding dry. Avoid cot bumpers which obstruct ventilation and can harbour dust mites. Keep all rooms well aired, dry and ventilate well. Damp and poor ventilation encourage house dust mites and moulds.

Avoid keeping any pets if you can until a child is at least two years old. If you do keep a pet, prevent it sleeping on the baby’s cot, in the baby’s room, or where the baby crawls or plays most of the time.

Use filters on a vacuum cleaner, and ‘damp dust’. This prevents virtually all allergens (house dust mites, pet allergens, pollens, moulds, fibres) being dispersed back around the room during the cleaning, and gradually clears allergens embedded in furnishings and flooring.

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Take care with house plants. If you are unusually sensitive to moulds, you may not be able to tolerate indoor pot plants at all. Moulds grow in the soil, and in the more humid atmosphere around the foliage.

To avoid problems with plants, put a light gravel on the surface of the soil in each pot and water the plants by placing water in a dish or saucer underneath. Take care not to let them stand in pools of water, which encourages moulds.

If you have garden beds against the walls of your home, or pots or beds immediately under windows, these can often be concentrated sources of moulds. You would be best to move beds and pots away from direct proximity to the walls, so that moulds do not rise straight into the home. Similarly, compost heaps are best kept as far from the home as possible. Water butts also are a source of moulds. Take care with siting these.

Gardening produces some of the most intense concentrations of moulds possible. If you love gardening, you will probably have to find out by trial and error what you can tolerate and what you cannot. You probably would be best avoiding many gardening tasks such as cutting grass, raking leaves, composting and heavy digging, and should stay out of greenhouses.

You could come to a deal over gardening with a friend or a family member, that you do the bits that you can for them such as weeding or pruning – in return for them doing the bits that you cannot.

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